The natural source for new pancreatic beta cells is an important issue both for understanding the pathogenesis of diabetes, and for possibly curing diabetes by increasing the number of beta cells. Dor et al.1 investigated beta‐cell renewal and regeneration by genetic lineage analysis in mice during physiological growth and after partial pancreatectomy. The data conclusively showed that beta‐cell replication was the only source for new beta cells without contributions from stem cells or other non‐beta cells. This underlines the capacity for (...) beta‐cell self‐renewal and casts doubt that other cell types are able to generate new beta cells in the intact pancreas. BioEssays 26:1156–1159, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Existing accounts of Foucault’s archaeological methodology have not (a) contextualized the concept properly within the intellectual field of its emergence and (b) explained why it is called ‘archaeology’ and not simply ‘history’. Foucault contributed to the field of ‘history of systems of thought’ in France around 1960 by broadening its scope from the study of scientific and philosophical systems into systems of ‘knowledge’ in a wider sense. For Foucault, the term ‘archaeology’ provided a response to new methodological questions arising from (...) this initiative. Archaeological methodology had already been developed into a distinct comparative approach for the study of linguistic and cultural systems, notably by Dumézil. Foucault redevised archaeological methodology for the post-Hegelian tradition of studying ‘problems’ prevalent in the history of systems of thought. The article thus furnishes the groundwork for a ‘sociological archaeology’ or ‘problem analysis’ that is not particularly dependent on Foucault as a social theorist of power. (shrink)

Das Buch befasst sich mit bislang unbekannten Kontexten von Theodor W. Adornos Kritik der Psychoanalyse, darunter vor allem die versuchte „Arisierung“ durch die Neoanalyse im Göring-Institut der NS-Zeit. Wolfgang Bock nimmt dazu einen wichtigen Ausgangspunkt von Adornos Aufsatz „Die revidierte Psychoanalyse“, der 1952 in der Psyche veröffentlicht wird. Der Autor zeigt anhand einer genauen Lektüre eins bislang unveröffentlichten englischen Vortragsmanuskripts von 1946, dass Adornos sich zusammen mit den zur Emigration gezwungenen jüdischen Analytikern vor allem gegen die Zurichtung der freudschen (...) Triebtheorie durch Karen Horney richtet, gegen die er auch in Amerika argumentiert. Er steht damit keinesfalls allein da. Diese Motive werden von Adorno allerdings ab 1950 in Deutschland nicht mehr offen aufgenommen, da er sich mangels anderer Alternativen nun verstärkt um ein Auskommen mit den ehemaligen Nazis bemüht. Wolfgang Bock, der auch der bislang kaum erfolgte Aufarbeitung dieses faschistischen Erbes in der Psychologie im Nachkriegsdeutschland nachgeht, kann zeigen, dass diese Momente weiterhin in Adornos späterer Fassung der Psychoanalyse wirksam bleiben. Vor diesem Hintergrund unterzieht er so gut wie alle Texte Adornos zur Psychoanalyse einer gründlichen Revision, darunter auch kaum bekannte Forschungsprojekte. Es zeigt sich, dass Adorno in den englischen Texten sehr viel offener argumentiert und damit paradoxerweise späteren Kritikern näher ist, als diese annehmen: Das Bild seines Umgangs mit der Psychoanalyse muss von nun an gründlich revidiert werden. Das Buch veröffentlicht zum ersten Mal den englischen Vortragstext Adornos von 1946 und bietet u.a. eine neue deutsche Übersetzung. (shrink)

Methodological inspiration from the discipline of archaeology can spur new developments of logic of inquiry in social research beyond contemporary debates among empiricist, rationalist, and pragmatist positions with their corresponding modes of inference: induction, deduction, and abduction. Archaeological methodology pursues comparison not in terms of similarities and differences among cases but through the juxtaposition of heterogeneous yet coexisting finds. On this basis, it pursues inferences by what I call ‘conduction’ about the relationship among finds, understood as their conditions of coexistence. (...) Archaeological methodology will prove especially useful to studies that face uncertainty about the constituting relationships of a phenomenon, surprising coexistences, or a need to transgress established disciplinary or social demarcations. On this background, I particularly discuss the usefulness of archaeological methodology for the broad literature on problems, problematization, issues, and concerns building on the works of Dewey, Callon, and Foucault. (shrink)

In a letter of 1932, Karl Popper described _Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie – The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge_ – as ‘…a child of crises, above all of …the crisis of physics.’ Finally available in English, it is a major contribution to the philosophy of science, epistemology and twentieth century philosophy generally. The two fundamental problems of knowledge that lie at the centre of the book are the problem of induction, that although we are able to (...) observe only a limited number of particular events, science nevertheless advances unrestricted universal statements; and the problem of demarcation, which asks for a separating line between empirical science and non-science. Popper seeks to solve these two basic problems with his celebrated theory of falsifiability, arguing that the inferences made in science are not inductive but deductive; science does not start with observations and proceed to generalise them but with problems, which it attacks with bold conjectures. _The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge_ is essential reading for anyone interested in Karl Popper, in the history and philosophy of science, and in the methods and theories of science itself. (shrink)

The live outdoor webcam seems inseparable from the mid-1990s’ popular proliferation of the Internet. Combining a well-known medium, i.e. the photograph, with a new one, i.e. the Internet, the live outdoor webcam seems in the rear-view mirror to have contributed significantly to the popular perception of the Internet as a globally distended and thus “geographical” medium. Moreover, due to its role in the NASA Triana mission, the never-realised flagship of the Clinton–Gore administration’s Digital Earth project, the live webcam seemed to (...) play an important part in the construction of what leading geographers coined a “virtual geography”—the geography of the Internet, and the networked geography—that sought to establish itself as a new field of study during the late 1990s. In order to substantiate for this interpretation, I would like in the first part of this article to identify a number of basic characteristics of the outdoor webcam and, in the second, to analyse and discuss two papers written by leading scholars in the field; papers which have been important in the assessment of the impact of the Internet and geographical information systems (GIS) before the scientific community as well as policy makers within technological innovation and the public sector. (shrink)

In seinen Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik hat Hegel einen der wichtigsten und wirkmächtigsten Beiträge zur Ästhetik und Philosophie der Kunst entwickelt. Von der systematischen Klärung der Idee des Schönen über die geschichtliche Unterscheidung der symbolischen, klassischen und romantischen Kunstform bis hin zur Darstellung der einzelnen Künste (Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei, Musik, Poesie) werden alle relevanten Aspekte entfaltet und miteinander vernetzt. Eindrucksvoll ist nicht nur Hegels plastischer Zugriff auf die Fülle konkreten Materials. Bedeutsam ist vor allem sein kulturphilosophischer Ansatz, der die Kunst (...) auf dem Rang des "absoluten Geistes" als zentrales Medium menschlicher Selbstverständigung begreift. Die vieldiskutierte These vom "Ende der Kunst" in der Moderne hängt damit direkt zusammen. Hegel hat seine vier Berliner Ästhetik-Kollegien nicht selbst publiziert. Dieser Kommentarband orientiert sich an der Edition des Hegel-Schülers H.G. Hotho und zieht ergänzend die Nachschriften, insbes. des letzten Kollegs von 1828/29 hinzu. In dieser Form wird Hegels Ästhetik auf dem aktuellen Forschungsstand für ein breites philosophisches und kulturwissenschaftliches Interessenfeld erschlossen. Mit Beiträgen von B. Collenberg-Plotnikov, N. Hebing, G. Hindrichs, S. Houlgate, W. Jaeschke, R. Pippin, B. Sandkaulen, U. Seeberg, M. Seel, A. Speight u. J. Stolzenberg. (shrink)

This highly acclaimed volume brings together some of the world's foremost historians of ideas to consider Machiavelli's political thought in the larger context of the European republican tradition, and the image of Machiavelli held by other republicans. An international team of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (notably law, philosophy, history and the history of political thought) explore both the immediate Florentine context in which Machiavelli wrote, and the republican legacy to which he contributed.

The present study investigates the influence of self-regulatory focus on consumer ethical beliefs (i.e., consumers' judgment of various unethical consumer practices). The self-regulatory focus framework is highly influential and applies to an impressively wide spectrum of topics across a diverse array of domains. However, previous research has not yet examined the link between this personality construct and the consumer ethics field. Findings indicate that promotion affects one's attitude toward questionable consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) promotion focus (...) being more likely to believe these consumer misbehaviors to be acceptable. Further, this study shows that prevention influences one's perception of morally dubious consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) prevention focus being more inclined to believe these questionable consumer activities to be unacceptable. (shrink)

Previous studies show evidence of double standards in terms of individuals being more tolerant of questionable consumer practices than of similar business practices. However, whether these double standards are necessarily due to the fact that one party is a business company while the other is a consumer was not addressed. The results of our two experimental studies, conducted among 277 (Study 1) and 264 (Study 2) participants from a Western European country by means of an anonymous self-administered online survey, demonstrate (...) that the respondents were not only harsher in their judgments of unethical business (vs. consumer) behavior, but also harsher in their judgments of unethical behavior by prosperous (vs. non-prosperous) consumers and prosperous (vs. non-prosperous) business companies (Study 1). Further, they were also less tolerant of unethical behavior by consumers (vs. one's best friend) and business companies with which they have a less than good (vs. a good) relationship (Study 2). These results indicate that double standards are due to differences in perceived wealth between subjects and in the individual's relationship with subjects. These two factors imply that double standards are not strictly reserved to consumer-business relations, but might also be used in business-business and consumer-consumer relations. Further, these results indicate that companies need to be aware of the fact that good financial figures may backfire as they might lead individuals to be more critical of a company's deceptive practices. Moreover, these findings point to the importance of businesses investing resources-and to keep investing resources-in developing a good relationship with stakeholders as these good relationships lead to stakeholders being less prone to make moral condemnations. (shrink)

To what extent are artists and sitters (or researchers and “objects” of investigation) implicated in their representations of others? How implicated are we when we identify with the way different cultures or perspectives represent ourselves? Understanding how specific forms of representation reveal differently authored perceptions of the individual is a critical concern. My overarching concern, as an artist, is to start mapping contemporary practices of identity formation and expression through the investigation of specific non- Western and subcultural modes that prioritise (...) different codes and social processes of cultural production – modes that do not privilege the gaze. Crucially, the case studies operate a strategic reversal of the classical artistic and scientific approaches: both sides in this dialogue of interpretation and representation involving the artist/researcher and the cultural actor are equally subject and object. The resulting artworks present distinct cultural practices as new possibilities for portrayal, and acts of selection, interpretation and definition as forms of cultural production. (shrink)

This article introduces a new model of the relationship between growth and learning and tests a set of hypotheses related to the development of adult competency using time allocation, anthropometric, and experimental task performance data collected between 1992 and 1997 in a multiethnic community in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Building on seminal work in life history theory by Hawkes, Blurton Jones and associates, and Kaplan and associates, the punctuated development model presented here incorporates the effects of both growth and learning (...) constraints on age-specific task performance. In addition, the payoff to investment in two forms of embodied capital, growth-based and learning-based, are examined in relation to features of the socioecology, including subsistence economy and family composition.The three main findings are:The development of adult competency in specific tasks entails a steplike relationship between growth- and experience-based forms of embodied capital in the ontogeny of ability acquisition.There is a trade-off between the acquisition of experience-based embodied capital in the form of skills and knowledge and immediate productivity among children. Time allocation to these alternatives is primarily determined by the short- and long-term costs and benefits to parents of investment in children’s embodied capital.The availability of laborers and the overall labor requirements of the household are major determinants of investment in alternate forms of embodied capital and resulting variation in children’s time allocation. The value of children’s labor to their parents is dependent upon the opportunity costs to engaging in other activities not only for the child in question but also for potential substitute laborers.These results have important implications for our understanding of the role of growth and learning in the evolution of the human juvenile period, as well as for our understanding of cross-cultural variation in child growth and development and patterns of work and play. (shrink)

The present study investigates the influence of self-regulatory focus on consumer ethical beliefs (i.e., consumers’ judgment of various unethical consumer practices). The self-regulatory focus framework is highly influential and applies to an impressively wide spectrum of topics across a diverse array of domains. However, previous research has not yet examined the link between this personality construct and the consumer ethics field. Findings indicate that promotion affects one’s attitude toward questionable consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) promotion focus (...) being more likely to believe these consumer misbehaviors to be acceptable. Further, this study shows that prevention influences one’s perception of morally dubious consumer practices with those having a stronger (versus weaker) prevention focus being more inclined to believe these questionable consumer activities to be unacceptable. (shrink)

Historically, as well as more recently, women's emancipation has been seen in two ways: sometimes as the `right to be equal' and sometimes as the `right to be different'. These views have often overlapped and interacted: in a variety of guises they have played an important role in both the development of ideas about women and feminism, and the works of political thinkers by no means primarily concerned with women's liberation. The chapters of this book deal primarily with the meaning (...) and use of these two concepts in the context of gender relations, but also draw attention to their place in the understanding and analysis of other human relationships. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to propose a middle ground in the debate over religious exemptions from measles vaccination requirements. It attempts to strike a balance between public health concerns on the one hand and religious objections on the other that avoids two equally serious errors: (1) making religious liberty an absolute and (2) disregarding religious beliefs altogether. Some think that the issue is straightforward: science has spoken and the benefits to public health outweigh any other concerns. The safety (...) of the community, they say, demands that everybody be vaccinated so that measles outbreaks can be prevented, but such voices often ignore the freedom of religion, which is a mistake. Using Martha Nussbaum’s work on religious liberty, this paper claims that the exemptions should be preserved if a certain level of vaccination rates can be maintained. (shrink)

From Stoicism to Platonism describes the change in philosophy from around 100 BCE, when monistic Stoicism was the strongest dogmatic school in philosophy, to around 100 CE, when dualistic Platonism began to gain the upper hand - with huge consequences for all later Western philosophy and for Christianity. It is distinguished by querying traditional categories like 'eclecticism' and 'harmonization' as means of describing the period. Instead, it highlights different strategies of 'appropriation' of one school's doctrines by philosophers from the other (...) school, with all philosophers being highly conscious of their own identity. The book also sets out to break down the traditional boundaries between, on the one hand, the study of Greco-Roman philosophy in the period and, on the other hand, that of contemporary Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian writings with a philosophical profile. In these ways, the book opens up an immensely fruitful period in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

While many theories exist to explain the complexity of environmental behaviour, the role of individuals’ relationship with nature has not yet been fully clarified. This paper attempts to operationalise human-nature relationships. It expands upon a scale assessed by an iterative process of mixed methods in the US and Europe. This scale is then used to assess individuals’ relationship with nature, and whether such relationships correlate with environmental behaviour. The value scale of Schwartz's Theory of Basic Values is used to validate (...) the results. The results verify that people hold multiple human-nature relationships, confirm strong correlations between human-nature relationships and values, and reveal that individuals’ behaviour is connected to the relationship they have with nature. (shrink)

At the top of his ethical system Aristotle placed, as the supreme value, eudai- monia (happiness). But what does this really mean? ...

L’article traduit pour Clio HFS est le premier chapitre de Writing Women’s History : International Perspectives (1991), premier ouvrage édité par La Fédération internationale pour la recherche en histoire des femmes née en 1987. Il dissèque six dichotomies qui ont permis ou permettent encore de penser les relations entre hommes et femmes et l’écriture de leur passé. Si les trois premières (nature/culture, travail/famille, public/privé), profondément inscrites dans la culture occidentale moderne et source de hiérarchies et d’exclusions, ont été à la (...) fois utilisées et contestées par les historiennes des années 1970 et 1980, trois nouvelles ont surgi des débats intellectuels et politiques (sexe/genre, égalité/différence, intégration/autonomie). Ces nouvelles dichotomies doivent être aussi déconstruites et dépassées, pour aller de l’avant sur le plan politique et historiographique. (shrink)

This paper investigates the compatibility of Hegel’s analyses of the mechanization of work in industrial society with Hegel’s notion of freedom as rational self-determination. Work as such is for Hegel a crucial moment on the way to a more complete realization of human freedom, but, as I maintain with Adorno, the technological developments of the last two centuries raise the question of whether the nature of work itself has changed since the industrial revolution. In his Jena lectures, Hegel recognized significant (...) problems that the mechanization of work poses for human freedom that—on my assessment—his later, mature thought does not sufficiently address. One finds, however, a more comprehensive depiction of the same worries that Hegel mentioned in his Jena lectures in Adorno’s critique of the dominant forms of labor in contemporary society and his understanding of technological rationality, which according to Adorno, dominates the contemporary world. I suggest, furthermore, that juxtaposing Hegel’s and Adorno’s thoughts on technology and the mechanization of work reveals Adorno’s philosophy of technology to be an extension, rather than a critique, of the spirit of Hegel’s own philosophical project as immanent critique of the necessary entailments of any given concept. (shrink)

This article offers a feminist deconstruction of legitimacy regarding the intentional decision by midlife independent single women to enter solo parenthood. Data collection involved interviews with 26 single mothers by choice and two years of participant observation in two Single Mothers by Choice support groups. Their accounts indicate that SMCs feel entitled to enter solo motherhood because they possess four essential attributes: age, responsibility, emotional maturity, and fiscal capability. SMCs use economic, moral, and religious justifications to further legitimize their decisions. (...) These justifications allow SMCs to present themselves as competent, ethical, and mainstream mothers. (shrink)

This paper engages in an interpretation and critique of Simondon’s approach to technical objects through his concept of alienation. I begin with his argument for why the fundamental source of alienation is “psycho-physical” and explain his critique of politico-economic analyses of alienation. I then explain his proposal for reducing alienation by rethinking work as “technical activity.” I then argue that while Simondon’s analyses of the internal functionality of technical objects provide important contributions to the philosophy of technology, he also overemphasizes (...) the psycho-physical and in turn underestimates the role of politico-economic factors in the ontogenesis of technical objects and production of alienation. Both the psycho-physical and politico-economic, I claim, must be thought together as necessarily interconnected conditions of the ontogenesis of technical objects. On that basis, it becomes possible to engage in philosophical critique of and education about the inner functionality of contemporary technologies and their accompanying risks. (shrink)