Pain management has improved in the past few decades. Opioid analgesics have become the mainstay in the treatment of cancer pain whilst inter-disciplinary pain management programmes are the generally accepted approach to chronic pain of non-malignant origin. Recently some pain specialists have advocated the use of opioids in the long-term management of non-cancer pain. This has raised some fundamental questions about the purpose of pain management. Is it best to opt for maximum pain relief and comfort, or should one emphasise (...) function and activity as higher priorities? Will the use of opioids create more autonomy for pain sufferers or will this add handicaps to lives which are already limited? Until more clinical outcome data are available we advocate caution in the use of opioid analgesia. Such caution can, and does, raise questions about the rights of the patient and the rights of the prescriber in a context where the facts do not point to a clear course of action. (shrink)

The role of fixed charges present at the surface of biological membranes is usually described by the Gouy-Chapman-Grahame theory of the electric double-layer where the Grahame equation is applied independently on each side of the membrane and where the capacitive charges are disregarded. In this article, we generalize the Gouy-Chapman-Grahame theory by taking into account both intrinsic charges and capacitive charges, in the density value of the membrane surface charges. In the first part, we show that capacitive charges couple electrostatic (...) potentials present on both sides of the membrane. The intensity of this coupling depends both on the value of the membrane specific capacitance and the transmembrane electric potential difference. In the second part, we suggest some physiological implications of membrane electric double-layers. (shrink)

Engineered microbes are of great potential utility in biotechnology and basic research. In principle, a cell can be built from scratch by assembling small molecule sets with auto‐catalytic properties. Alternatively, DNA can be isolated or directly synthesized and molded into a synthetic genome using existing genomic blueprints and molecular biology tools. Activating such a synthetic genome will yield a synthetic cell. Here we examine obstacles associated with this latter approach using a model system whereby a donor genome from H. influenzae (...) is fragmented, and the pieces are then modified and reassembled stepwise in an E. coli host cell. There are obstacles associated with this strategy related to DNA transfer, DNA replication, cross‐talk in gene regulation and compatibility of gene products between donor and host. Encouragingly, analysis of gene expression indicates widespread transcription of H. influenzae genes in E. coli, and analysis of gap locations in H. influenzae and other microbial genome assemblies reveals few genes routinely incompatible with E. coli. In conclusion, rebuilding and booting a genome remains a feasible and pragmatic approach to creating a synthetic microbial cell. BioEssays 29:580–590, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Life-science phenomena are often explained by specifying the mechanisms that bring them about. The new mechanistic philosophers have done much to substantiate this claim and to provide us with a better understanding of what mechanisms are and how they explain. Although there is disagreement among current mechanists on various issues, they share a common core position and a seeming commitment to some form of scientific realism. But is such a commitment necessary? Is it the best way to go about mechanistic (...) explanation? In this article, we propose an alternative antirealist account that also fits explanatory practice in the life sciences. We pay special attention to mechanistic models, i.e. scientific models that involve a mechanism, and to the role of coherence considerations in building such models. To illustrate our points, we consider the mechanism for the action potential. 1 Introduction2 Some Core Features of Mechanistic Explanation3 Scientific Realism and Mechanistic Explanation4 Antirealist Mechanistic Explanation: The Case of the Action Potential5 Some Outstanding Issues for the Antirealist Mechanist6 Two Problems for the Realist Mechanist7 Conclusions. (shrink)

We analyze the role of ethical values in the determination of the social cost of carbon, arguing that the familiar debate about discounting is too narrow. Other ethical issues are equally important to computing the social cost of carbon, and we highlight inequality, risk, and population ethics. Although the usual approach, in the economics of cost-benefit analysis for climate policy, is confined to a utilitarian axiology, the methodology of the social cost of carbon is rather flexible and can be expanded (...) to a broader set of social-welfare approaches. [Open access]. (shrink)

We will show that there is a strong form of emergence in cell biology. Beginning with C.D. Broad's classic discussion of emergence, we distinguish two conditions sufficient for emergence. Emergence in biology must be compatible with the thought that all explanations of systemic properties are mechanistic explanations and with their sufficiency. Explanations of systemic properties are always in terms of the properties of the parts within the system. Nonetheless, systemic properties can still be emergent. If the properties of the components (...) within the system cannot be predicted, even in principle, from the behavior of the system's parts within simpler wholes then there also will be systemic properties which cannot be predicted, even in principle, on basis of the behavior of these parts. We show in an explicit case study drawn from molecular cell physiology that biochemical networks display this kind of emergence, even though they deploy only mechanistic explanations. This illustrates emergence and its place in nature. (shrink)

Most theories of learning consider inferring a function f from either observations about f or, questions about f. We consider a scenario whereby the learner observes f and asks queries to some set A. If I is a notion of learning then I[A] is the set of concept classes I-learnable by an inductive inference machine with oracle A. A and B are I-equivalent if I[A] = I[B]. The equivalence classes induced are the degrees of inferability. We prove several results about (...) when these degrees are trivial, and when the degrees are omniscient. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Stephane Savanah provides a critique of theories of self-recognition that largely mirrors my own critique that I began publishing two decades ago. In addition, he both misconstrues my kinesthetic-visual matching model of mirror self-recognition in multiple ways , and misconstrues the evidence in the scientific literature on MSR. I describe points of agreement in our thinking about self-recognition, and criticize and rectify inaccuracies.

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

Brain imaging studies have consistently shown subgenual Anterior Cingulate Cortical (sgACC) involvement in emotion processing. COMT Val158 and Met158 polymorphisms may influence such emotional brain processes in specific ways. Given that resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) may increase our understanding on brain functioning, we integrated genetic and rsfMRI data and focused on sgACC functional connections. No studies have yet investigated the influence of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) on sgACC resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in healthy individuals. A homogeneous group of sixty-one Caucasian (...) right-handed healthy female university students, all within the same age range, underwent rsfMRI. Compared to Met158 homozygotes, Val158 allele carriers displayed significantly stronger rsFC between the sgACC and the left parahippocampal gyrus, ventromedial parts of the inferior frontal gyrus, and the nucleus accumbens (NAc). On the other hand, compared to Val158 homozygotes, we found in Met158 allele carriers stronger sgACC rsFC with the medial frontal gyrus, more in particular the anterior parts of the medial orbitofrontal cortex. Although we did not use emotional or cognitive tasks, our sgACC rsFC results point to possible distinct differences in emotional and cognitive processes between Val158 and Met158 allele carriers. However, the exact nature of these directions remains to be determined. (shrink)

Does the global supervenience of one class on another entail reductionism, in the sense that any property in the former class is definable from properties in the latter class? This question appears to be at the same time formally tractable and philosophically significant. It seems formally tractable because the concepts involved are susceptible to rigorous definition. It is philosophically significant because in a number of debates about inter-level relationships, there are prima facie plausible positions that presuppose that there is no (...) such entailment: standard versions of non-reductive physicalism and of normative non-naturalism accept global supervenience while rejecting reductionism. I identify a gap in an influential argument for the entailment, due to Frank Jackson and Robert Stalnaker, and draw on the model theory of infinitary languages to argue that some globally supervening properties are not reducible. (shrink)

Special issue. With contributions by Anouk Barberouse, Sarah Francescelli and Cyrille Imbert, Robert Batterman, Roman Frigg and Julian Reiss, Axel Gelfert, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Paul Humphreys, James Mattingly and Walter Warwick, Matthew Parker, Wendy Parker, Dirk Schlimm, and Eric Winsberg.

The parts-based engineering approach in synthetic biology aims to create pre-characterised biological parts that can be used for the rational design of novel functional systems. Given the context-sensitivity of biological entities, a key question synthetic biologists have to address is what properties these parts should have so that they give a predictable output even when they are used in different contexts. In the first part of this paper I will analyse some of the answers that synthetic biologists have given to (...) this question and claim that the focus of these answers on parts and their properties does not allow us to tackle the problem of context-sensitivity. In the second part of the paper, I will argue that we might have to abandon the notions of parts and their properties in order to understand how independence in biology could be achieved. Using Robert Cummins’ account of functional analysis, I will then develop the notion of a capacity and its condition space and show how these notions can help to tackle the problem of context-sensitivity in biology. (shrink)

A focus on the lawmaking process, I submit, permits us to explore a particular dimension of justice, namely the relationship between law and liberty. Laws that reflect the arbitrary whims of the lawmaker are presumptively unjust, because they constrain liberty for no good reason. A strategy for making arbitrary laws less likely involves recognizing checks on the lawmaker's powers and grounding those checks in processes that allow the governed to express their disapproval. The system of checks and balances employed in (...) the U.S. Constitution embodies this strategy, although reasonable people can debate its efficacy. As A.O. Hirschman observed, regimes that permit free movement of persons and property similarly restrict the force of arbitrary rules by allowing exit from unwanted restrictions. I want to inquire into the role of checks in international lawmaking. At first blush, it might appear that the fundamental principle of state consent provides all the checking that international lawmaking needs. This principle maintains that a state (and by extension, its subjects) can be bound by a rule of international law only if that state manifests its consent to the rule. As long as states have a real choice, itself subject to internal checks on official decisionmaking, the adoption of the rule should meet basic criteria of procedural justice. Indeed, the correlate of this principle—that each state has a veto over the adoption of international law, at least as applied to itself and its subjects—suggests that international lawmaking poses less of a threat to liberty than do conventional municipal lawmaking processes based on majority rule. One might think that, as a result of this principle, no rule will attain the status of international law unless its adoption makes some states better off and no state worse off. This first impression, however, is wrong. First, international lawyers argue for the existence of jus cogens norms that apply regardless of state consent. Second, the concept of state consent is artful, and opportunistic decisionmakers have some freedom to construe consent in ways that circumvent conventional checking processes. Third, political and economic coercion can reduce state consent to a meaningless formality. I discuss each of these points in turn. Once state consent ceases to constrain international lawmaking, the question role of alternative checks to protect liberty looms. Under what circumstances does the international lawmaking process as currently constituted present a threat of arbitrary force? What kinds of resistance to the results of international lawmaking can process values justify? I address these questions in three steps. First, I explore whether international law does carry a threat of coercion. If not, concerns about arbitrary restrictions of liberty are misplaced. Second, I discuss the problems arising from delegations of lawmaking authority to international institutions, with specific reference to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. Third, I discuss the process-value issues associated with judicial lawmaking. None of these concerns justifies blanket opposition to international lawmaking. Rather, those interested in making and enforcing international rules need to grapple with these issues and provide another layer of justification for their efforts. a Footnotesa I am indebted to Ken Abbott, Jean Cohen, Larry Helfer, Robert Hockett, Sean Murphy, Phil Nichols, Ed Swaine, Joel Trachtman, the other contributors to this volume, and participants in a workshop at the University of Virginia School of Law for comments and criticism. Shortcomings are mine alone. (shrink)

The authors of this volume discuss the relevance and influence of various Old and New Testament documents, and early Christian and Jewish texts in terms of their impact in shaping the moral character, identity, and behaviour of the specific communities in which they were produced as well as their ethical application throughout the centuries. Against a narrow understanding of ethics, the term "application" is not used to analyse the texts of the Bible as step-by-step manuals for moral conduct. Rather, the (...) contributors engage with biblical texts within the framework of a complex hermeneutical process of application of the relevance of these texts in contemporary ethical discourse. Contributors: Paul N. Anderson, Robert L. Brawley, Cilliers Breytenbach, Ulrich Busse, R. Alan Culpepper, Jan Willem van Henten, Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Stephan Joubert, Craig R. Koester, Bart J. Koet, Michael Labahn, Tobias Nicklas, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Udo Schnelle, Michael Theobald, D. Francois Tolmie, Joseph Verheyden, Ben Witherington, III, Ellen van Wolde, Michael Wolter, Mirjam Zimmermann, Ruben Zimmermann. (shrink)

Holds the figure of Orpheus as the bridge between the Greek tribal shaman and poet Mallarme (1842-98), the father of modernism.

Books Reviewed in this Article: Introduction to the Critical Study of the Text of the Hebrew Bible. By J. Weingreen. Pp.vii, 103, Oxford, Clarendon Press; New York, Oxford University Press, 1982, £5.50. The Archaeology of the Land of Israel. By Yohanan Aharoni. Pp.xx, 344, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1982, $27.50, $18.95 ; London, SCM Press, 1982, £12.50. A Commentary on the Gospel of Mark. By Terence J. Keegan. Pp.183, New York, Paulist Press, and Leominster, Fowler Wright Books, 1981, £4.45. The (...) Panorama of Luke: An Introduction to the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. By Neil Richardson. Pp.116, London, Epworth Press, 1982, £3.95. The Synoptic Gospels: An Introduction. By Keith F. Nickle. Pp.119, London SCM Press, 1982, £5.50. What is a Gospel? By Nicholas King. Pp.132, Leigh‐on‐Sea, Kevin Mayhew, 1982, £3.00. The Women Around Jesus: Reflections on Authentic Personhood. By Elisabeth Moltmann‐Wendel, translated by J. Bowden. Pp.xii, 148, London, SCM Press, 1982, £3.95. Paul and Paulinism: Essays in honour of C.K. Barrett. Edited by M.D. Hooker and S.G. Wilson. Pp.xxvii, 404, London, SPCK, 1982, £25.00. Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism. By William J. Abraham. Pp.222, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, £15.00. The Social Teaching of Vatican II. By Rodger Charles with Drostan Maclaren. Pp.xxvi, 569, San Francisco, Ignatius Press; Oxford, Plater Publications, 1982, £12.75. Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching. By Donal Dorr. Pp.viii, 328, New York, Orbis Books; Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1983, £7.95. The Kindness that Kills. Edited by Digby Anderson. Pp.xii, 170, London SPCK, 1984, £3.95. Communism in the Bible. By José Porfiro Miranda. Pp.x, 86, London, SCM Press Ltd. 1982, £3.50. Why I am still a Catholic. Edited by Robert Nowell. Pp.157, London, Collins, 1982, £4.95. Does God Answer Prayer? By Peter Baelz. Pp.55, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £1.95. A Cry for Mercy. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.175, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982, £3.50. The Living Reminder. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.80, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982, £2.95. Making All Things New. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.95, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982. £2.95. Picturing God. By Norman Pittenger. Pp.x, 147, London, SCM Press, 1982, £4.50. Christotherapy II, The Fasting and Feasting Heart. By Bernard J. Tyrrell. Pp.xiii, 337, New York, Paulist Press, 1982, £6.70. With Respect: A Doctor's Response to a Healing Pope. By Frank Lake. Pp.xxiii, 327, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £6.95. Euthanasia and Clinical Practice: Trends, Principles and Alternatives: The Report of a Working Party. Pp.viii, 88, London, The Linacre Centre, 1982, £2.75. Essays in Religion and Morality. By William James. Pp.xxviii, 345, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £17.50. Freud and Jung: Conflicts of Interpretation. By Robert Steele. Pp.vii, 390, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £14.95. Archetype: A Natural History of the Self. By Anthony Stevens. Pp.xi, 324, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £12.50. The Seeing Eye: Hermeneutical Phenomenology in the Study of Religion. By Walter L. Brenneman Jr. and Stanley O. Yarian, in association with Alan M. Olson. Pp.xii, 177, University Park and London, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982, £8.10. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Edited by S.M. Cahn and D. Schatz. Pp.x, 310, Oxford University Press, 1982, £6.95. Beyond Empiricism: Philosophy of Science in Sociology. By Andrew Tudor. Pp.xii, 213, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £4.95. Philosophy and Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary Approaches. By R.J. Johnston. Pp.viii, 152, London, Edward Arnold, 1982, £5.50. The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences. By Eric A. Havelock. pp.viii, 362, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1982, £17.70, £6.30. The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste. By James McEvoy. Pp.xviii, 560, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, £35.00. Kant's Life and Thought. By Ernst Cassirer, translated by James Haden, introduction by Stephan Körner. Pp.xxiii, 429, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981, £17.50. Kant's Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason. By Robert B. Pippin. Pp.xii, 247, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1982, £16.50. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. By Martin Heidegger, translated by Albert Hofstadter. Pp.xxxi, 396, Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1982, £16.50. In the Active Voice By Mary Douglas. Pp.xi, 306, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £9.75. Structural Sociology. Edited by Ino Rossi. Pp.xiv, 363, New York, Columbia University Presss, 1982, £45.50. A Vanquished Hope: The Movement for Church Renewal in Russia, 1905–1906. By J.W. Cunningham. Pp.384, Crestwood, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981, £7.95. Christians in Ulster 1968–1980. By Eric Gallagher and Stanley Worrall. P.241, Oxford University Press, 1982, £10.00. Scotland and the Papacy. By John Cooney. Pp.126, Edinburgh, Paul Harris, 1982, £8.95, £4.95. Scotia Pontificia. Edited by Robert Somerville. Pp.xiii, 177, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1982, £25.00. (shrink)

Er ist wie Günter Grass, Martin Walser und Joseph Ratzinger 1927 geboren, Zeitgenosse von Habermas und Enzensberger und sein Leben verlief so spannend wie kein zweites seiner Generation. Die Mutter war Tänzerin bei Mary Wigman, sein Vater Kunsthistoriker. Seine Eltern waren links, atheistisch und lebten in der Berliner Bohème der Zwanziger Jahre. 1942, nach dem Tod seiner Mutter, wird der Vater zum katholischen Priester geweiht. 1944 ist Spaemann bei einem Bauer untergetaucht, er ist Deserteur im eigenen Land. Entdeckt man ihn (...) jetzt, wird er sofort erschossen. Heute ist Robert Spaemann der bedeutendste konservative Philosoph im In und Ausland. In einem langen Gespräch mit Stephan Sattler resümiert er sein Leben, ganz unter der Maxime der Suche nach dem, "was in Wahrheit ist". Spaemann ist der bedeutendste konservative Philosoph im In- und Ausland und bekennender Gegner der Nutzung der Atomkraft und der Genmanipulation. (shrink)

Hiding behind a benign title and expressed in deceptively noncommittal prose, Stephan Körner's Metaphysics: Its Structure and Function is a book with a radical purpose. It wants no less than to show that everyone is committed to a "metaphysics" in Körner's sense; to determine once and for all the scope and limits of this metaphysics. Is Körner really the Last Metaphysician? We shall see.

Angesichts der Globalisierung und der von ihr aufgeworfenen Probleme für das nationale und das internationale Recht gewinnt die Rechtsphilosophie immer stärker an Bedeutung. Zugleich verbinden sich rechtstheoretische Fragen wieder zunehmend mit philosophischen Überlegungen. Der vorliegende Band versammelt 20 Beiträge namhafter Rechtstheoretiker und Philosophen, die die eigenständige Begriffsbildung und die Entwicklung neuer Theorieansätze auf dem Gebiet der Rechtsphilosophie zum Ziel haben. Das Spektrum reicht dabei von grundbegrifflichen Klärungen bis hin zu konkreten Problemstellungen des globalisierten Rechts und bietet einen umfassenden Überblick über (...) die aktuelle deutsche und internationale Debatte. Mit Beiträgen u. a. von Robert Alexy, Klaus Günther, Gunther Teubner, Otfried Höffe und Jürgen Habermas. (shrink)

This chapter outlines a response to the world's thoroughgoing arbitrariness, looking at the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and the performances of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Mallarmé set out to remedy the predicament by creating an alternative world, one which exists only in and through poetry, one where everything has to be exactly what and where it is. He also provided his readers with a formal model and the skills required for the creation of their own. In pointing to their (...) own fictionality, the poems accustom their readers in the divided attitude required to believe in fictions they themselves have created. The chapter also notes that Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin's magic performances work in exactly the same way. It concludes that self-reflexivity at large, a central feature of literary modernism, may have emerged from this need to re-enchant the world. (shrink)

The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature.

Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology reveals two attitudes regarding the classification of phenomena. On the one hand, they are classified by type. On the other, the “banality of saturation” reduces these types topossibleinterpretations, in which case saturation isn’t a qualitative rupture anymore, but a possible hermeneutic attitude to any phenomenon. Hence, there is, in Marion’s phenomenology, a tension between a metaphysical attitude that maintains categorial discontinuities, and a hermeneutic temptation driven by the recovery of quantitative continuities between all phenomena. Yet, Marion does (...) not push this quantitative temptation to its limits; he steps back in front of a specifically saturated phenomenon: the icon. (shrink)

Subjectivism about well-being holds that an object contributes to one's well-being to the extent that one has a pro-attitude toward this object under certain conditions. Most subjectivists have contended that these conditions should be ideal. One reason in favor of this idea is that when people adapt their pro-attitudes to situations of oppression, the levels of well-being they may attain is diminished. Nevertheless, I first argue that appealing to idealized conditions of autonomy or any other condition to erase or replace (...) adaptive pro-attitudes is mistaken. Second, I show that the most natural version of subjectivism that does not appeal to any such idealizing condition can explain why the well-being of people having adaptive pro-attitudes should not be restricted to the fulfillment of these pro-attitudes. In sum, the existence of adaptive preferences does not militate in favor of the introduction of conditions of idealization but against it. (shrink)

Many collective decision making problems have a combinatorial structure: the agents involved must decide on multiple issues and their preferences over one issue may depend on the choices adopted for some of the others. Voting is an attractive method for making collective decisions, but conducting a multi-issue election is challenging. On the one hand, requiring agents to vote by expressing their preferences over all combinations of issues is computationally infeasible; on the other, decomposing the problem into several elections on smaller (...) sets of issues can lead to paradoxical outcomes. Any pragmatic method for running a multi-issue election will have to balance these two concerns. We identify and analyse the problem of generating an agenda for a given election, specifying which issues to vote on together in local elections and in which order to schedule those local elections. (shrink)

Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, Carlos Almaraz, Robert Arneson, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Robert Bechtle, Jeff Brouws, Laurie Brown, Angela Buenning, Darlene Campbell, Mark Campbell, Gary Carlos, Fandra Chang, Stephane Couturier, Robert Dawson, Joe Deal, Richard Diebenkorn, John Divola, Beth Yarnelle Edwards, Kota Ezawa, William A. Garnett, Jeff Gillette, Joe Goode, Todd Hido, David Hockney, Salomon Huerta, Robert Isaacs, Thomas Lawson, Jean Lowe, Alex MacLean, Richard Meisinger, Jr., Richard Misrach, Rick Monzon, Barrie Mottishaw, Martin Mull, Deborah (...) Oropallo, Bill Owens, Rondal Partridge, John Register, Ed Ruscha, Peter Saul, Mary Snowden, Joel Sternfeld, Larry Sultan, Rudy Vanderlans, Camilo Jose Vergara, Henry Wessel, Amir Zaki. (shrink)

Most of the readers of Frege's first Logical Investigation, have been convinced that, according to Frege, the sense of was a private one, that an I-thought was a private thought. But it is not the case: the famous Fregean distinction between private representations and public thoughts seems an explanation and a generalization of the I-thought problem as much as an anti-Cartesian repetition of the Cartesian Second Meditation. Frege's position concerning indexical thoughts is that they are public thoughts, for the sense (...) of an indexical expression is not related to private representations but to some semiotical aspects of the public context of its utterance. (shrink)

Stéphane Vinolo | : Jean-Luc Marion a sans aucun doute révolutionné les études cartésiennes, mais nous trouvons aussi dans ses textes de nombreuses références à Spinoza. Malgré le rejet du Spinoza métaphysicien, la phénoménologie de la donation se construit dans un certain rapport à Spinoza, double rapport que nous essayons de mettre au jour. D’un côté, la conception du don que propose Marion nous permet de mieux interpréter Spinoza ; de l’autre, Marion trouve dans le système immanent de Spinoza, (...) de nombreuses lignes de fuite hors de la métaphysique. Ainsi, non seulement pouvons-nous utiliser la pensée de Marion comme principe herméneutique des textes de Spinoza, mais en plus nous permet-elle de questionner la place de Spinoza dans l’Histoire de la métaphysique. | : Jean‐Luc Marion has undoubtedly revolutionized Cartesian studies. But we also find, in his texts, numerous references to Spinoza. Despite his rejection of the metaphysical temptation of Spinoza, the phenomenology of givenness is built with a certain reference to Spinoza, a double reference that we will attempt to reveal. On the one hand, we are able to better interpret Spinoza through the conception of the gift as proposed by Marion ; on the other hand, Marion finds various lines of escape beyond metaphysics in Spinoza’s immanent system. Thus, not only can we use the thought of Marion as a hermeneutic principle for Spinoza’s texts, but it also allows us to determine the place of Spinoza in the history of metaphysics. (shrink)

Local sustainable food systems have captured the popular imagination as a progressive, if not radical, pillar of a sustainable food future. Yet these grassroots innovations are embedded in a dominant food regime that reflects productivist, industrial, and neoliberal policies and institutions. Understanding the relationship between these emerging grassroots efforts and the dominant food regime is of central importance in any transition to a more sustainable food system. In this study, we examine the encounters of direct farm marketers with food safety (...) regulations and other government policies and the role of this interface in shaping the potential of local food in a wider transition to sustainable agri-food systems. This mixed methods research involved interview and survey data with farmers and ranchers in both the USA and Canada and an in-depth case study in the province of Manitoba. We identified four distinct types of interactions between government and farmers: containing, coopting, contesting, and collaborating. The inconsistent enforcement of food safety regulations is found to contain progressive efforts to change food systems. While government support programs for local food were helpful in some regards, they were often considered to be inadequate or inappropriate and thus served to coopt discourse and practice by primarily supporting initiatives that conform to more mainstream approaches. Farmers and other grassroots actors contested these food safety regulations and inadequate government support programs through both individual and collective action. Finally, farmers found ways to collaborate with governments to work towards mutually defined solutions. While containing and coopting reflect technologies of governmentality that reinforce the status quo, both collaborating and contesting reflect opportunities to affect or even transform the dominant regime by engaging in alternative economic activities as part of the ‘politics of possibility’. Developing a better understanding of the nature of these interactions will help grassroots movements to create effective strategies for achieving more sustainable and just food systems. (shrink)

L'évolution de la clinique psychiatrique a mis au centre de ses recherches l'écoute et la parole du patient. Cependant le plus souvent la parole échoit dans les discours et l'écoute se décentre vers la vérification des a priori théo­riques. L'empathie ou les règlements qui incitent le clinicien à mettre le patient au centre de ses préoccupations apportent confort et sécurité mais ratent la rencontre clinique qui échoit dans le relationnel. Une relation n'est pas une rencontre. Le contexte de...

La question des instincts est une voie d’entrée privilégiée pour le rapport du pragmatisme au naturalisme. Le problème que soulève la théorie des instincts de William James et John Dewey vient du maintien, à première vue surprenant, de l’idée d’une « nature humaine ». Je soutiens que c’est au sein même de la théorie pragmatiste des instincts que l’on trouve des arguments pour montrer que la nature humaine ne détermine pas univoquement la conduite. Bien comprendre la naturalité de l’être humain (...) suffit à défaire toute tentative pour l’ériger en source d’autorité des principes de la conduite. (shrink)