The YAP/TAZ family of transcriptional co‐activators drives cell proliferation in epithelial tissues and cancers. Yet, how YAP and TAZ are physiologically regulated remains unclear. Here we review recent reports that YAP and TAZ act primarily as sensors of epithelial cell polarity, being inhibited when cells differentiate an apical membrane domain, and being activated when cells contact the extracellular matrix via their basal membrane domain. Apical signalling occurs via the canonical Crumbs/CRB‐Hippo/MST‐Warts/LATS kinase cascade to phosphorylate and inhibit YAP/TAZ. Basal signalling occurs (...) via Integrins and Src family kinases to phosphorylate and activate YAP/TAZ. Thus, YAP/TAZ is localised to the nucleus in basal stem/progenitor cells and cytoplasm in differentiated squamous cells or columnar cells. In addition, other signals such as mechanical forces, tissue damage and possibly receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) can influence MST‐LATS or Src family kinase activity to modulate YAP/TAZ activity. (shrink)

For reasons I have never understood, some students of the cerebellum have been unwilling to accept the now overwhelming evidence that the cerebellum exhibits lasting synaptic plasticity and plays an essential role in some forms of learning and memory. With a few exceptions (e.g., target article by SIMPSON et al.) this is no longer the case, as is clear in the excellent target articles on cerebellar LTD and the excellent target review by HOUK et al. [CRÉPEL et al.; HOUR et (...) al.; KANO; LINDEN; SIMPSON et al.; SMITH; VINCENT]. (shrink)

With the 2015 publication of Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si', many people of faith have found themselves challenged to seek new ways of addressing serious ecological questions -- issues essential to the flourishing of all creatures and not just human beings. This volume brings together fifteen select scholars to consider pressing contemporary environmental concerns through the lens of Catholic theology. Drawing from the early church fathers and other authoritative voices in the Christian tradition, the contributors to On Earth as It (...) Is in Heaven show how ancient, creedal Christianity offers significant insights into our current ecological dilemmas and speaks powerfully about what it means for us today to care well for God's good creation. CONTRIBUTORS and TOPICS Robert Louis Wilken on honoring centipedes and toads -- and all of God's created works Christopher J. Thompson on not reducing creatures to "resources" solely to be "used" Steven A. Long on understanding the created order as a participation in the divine, eternal law Marie George on human stewardship of creation as both kingship and kinship Matthew Levering on "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" -- a good idea? Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, on sustainability from a Franciscan perspective John A. Cuddeback on land use and household stewardship Faith Pawl on animal flourishing and suffering Paul M. Blowers on evolutionary theory and the promise of restoration for all creation Christopher A. Franks on Job, poverty, gratitude, and "a gentle life" Jonathan J. Sanford on how Aristotle and Maritain illuminate our obligation to care for creation Paige E. Hochschild on contemplating rather than dominating nature, building on Augustine and George Grant Chris Killheffer on how monastic sources help us rethink gluttony and its remedies David Vincent Meconi, SJ, on the wonderful, awe-filled interrelationship between creatures and their Creator Esther Mary Nickel, RSM, on the liturgy as the space in which all creation is consecrated before the cross of Christ. (shrink)

The central thesis of this book is that the semantic conception is a logical methodologically and heuristically richer and more accurate account of scientific theorizing, and in particular of theorizing in evolutionary biology, than the ...

Grounding talk has become increasingly familiar in contemporary philosophical discussion. Most discussants of grounding think that grounding talk is useful, intelligible, and accurately describes metaphysical reality. Call themrealistsabout grounding. Some dissenters reject grounding talk on the grounds that it is unintelligible, or unmotivated. They would prefer to eliminate grounding talk from philosophy, so we can call themeliminitivistsabout grounding. This paper outlines a new position in the debate about grounding, defending the view that grounding talk is (or at least can be) (...) intelligible and useful. Grounding talk does not, however, provide a literal and veridical description of mind-independent metaphysical reality. This (non-eliminative)irrealismabout grounding treads a path between realism and eliminativism. (shrink)

I propose a theory of domination derived from republican political theory that is in contrast to the neo-republican theory of domination as arbitrary interference and domination as dependence. I suggest that, drawing on of the writings of Machiavelli and Rousseau, we can see two faces of domination that come together to inform social relations. One type of domination is extractive dominance where agents are able to derive surplus benefit from another individual, group, or collective resource, natural or human. Another is (...) what I call constitutive domination where the norms, institutions, and values of the community shape the rationality of subjects to accept forms of power and social relations and collective goals as legitimate forms of authority. Each of these make up two faces of a broader theory of social domination that is more concrete and politically compelling than that put forth by contemporary neo-republican theory. I argue that this understanding of domination should be seen as a kind of ‘radical... (shrink)

The central idea of Waking, Dreaming, Being is that the self is a process, not a thing or an entity.1 The self isn’t something outside experience, hidden either in the brain or in some immaterial realm. It is an experiential process that is subject to constant change. We enact a self in the process of awareness, and this self comes and goes depending on how we are aware.When we’re awake and occupied with some manual task, we enact a bodily self (...) geared to our immediate environment. Yet this bodily self recedes from our experience if our task becomes an absorbing mental one. If our mind wanders, the mentally imagined self of the past or future overtakes the self of the present moment.As we start to fall asleep, the... (shrink)

Climate change adaptation is largely a local matter, and adaptation planning can benefit from local climate change projections. Such projections are typically generated by accepting climate model outputs in a relatively uncritical way. We argue, based on the IPCC’s treatment of model outputs from the CMIP5 ensemble, that this approach is unwarranted and that subjective expert judgment should play a central role in the provision of local climate change projections intended to support decision-making.

Experimental philosophers rely almost exclusively on quantitative surveys that potentially misrepresent participants’ multifarious judgments. To assess the efficacy of qualitative methods in experimental philosophy and reveal limitations with quantitative surveys, a study was conducted on the Kantian principle that ‘ought implies can’, which limits moral obligation to actions that agents can do. Specifically, the think aloud method and a follow-up interview were employed in a modified version of a prominent experiment that recorded participants’ judgments of ability, blame, and obligation using (...) quantitative surveys. The modified version produced quantitative results similar to the original experiment along with qualitative data that reveal that the surveys fundamentally misrepresented participants’ judgments. The qualitative transcripts from 40 participants are analyzed to show that ‘ought implies can’ judgments are complex and multifarious, that ‘ought implies can’ judgments are misrepresented by quantitative survey questions, and that the majority of participants uphold or preserve ‘ought implies can.’ The results suggest that experimental philosophers can more accurately capture judgments by using qualitative methods, and that studies which rely on quantitative surveys possibly misrepresent participants’ judgments. (shrink)

This article presents a critique of Philip Pettit’s concept of ‘freedom as non-domination’ and provides an alternative theory of both domination and republican political freedom. I argue that Pettit’s neo-republican concept of domination is insufficient to confront modern forms of domination and that this hampers his concept of republican freedom and its political relevance under the conditions of modernity. Whereas the neo-republican account of domination is defined by ‘arbitrary interference’, modern forms of domination, I argue, are characterized by routinization and (...) systemic forms of control and subordination. In the end, the neo-republican account of domination is more appropriate for 17th- and 18th-century social institutions rather than those that persist under modernity. In its place, I propose a more dynamic concept of domination and rework the concept of freedom in order to place the republican tradition within the context of modernity itself. I argue that the core insight of republicanism is its emphasis on the arrangement and reformation of social institutions to enhance social freedom. From this, I argue that republicanism can take its place as a more attractive alternative to liberal theory. (shrink)

Democracy is prone to what may be called presentism – a bias in the laws in favor of present over future generations. I identify the characteristics of democracies that lead to presentism, and examine the reasons that make it a serious problem. Then I consider why conventional theories are not adequate to deal with it, and develop a more satisfactory alternative approach, which I call democratic trusteeship. Present generations can represent future generations by acting as trustees of the democratic process. (...) The general principle is that present generations should act to protect the democratic process itself over time. They should try to make sure that future citizens continue to have competent control over their collective decision‐making. (shrink)

A critique of contemporary critical theory that traces transformative shifts in the discipline during the twentieth century and argues for a reformulation of critical theory in order to ensure the legacy of its political project.

Philosophical food ethics or deliberative inquiry into the moral norms for production, distribution and consumption of food is contrasted with food ethics as an international social movement aimed at reforming the global food system. The latter yields an activist orientation that can become embroiled in self-defeating impotency when the complexity and internal contradictions of the food system are more fully appreciated. However, recent work in intersectionality offers resources that are useful to both philosophical and activist food ethics. For activists, intersectionality (...) provides a way to preserve and strengthen the meaningfulness of protest and resistance, even in the face of complexity and uncertain outcomes. For philosophers, intersectionality chastens the tendency to regard moral problems as inherently solvable, and provides a way use tensions inherent in food system reform as a source of ethical insight. (shrink)

A standard view of trust sees trust as intimately related to reliance; on this standard view, trust is reliance plus some other factor. A significant literature has now developed that seeks to explain what factor, in addition to reliance, serves to distinguish cases of trust from cases of mere reliance. I argue that this approach to the analysis of trust is misguided. Although reliance, properly understood, frequently accompanies trust, reliance is not a necessary condition of trust.

Today humanity faces radical global climate change, mass species extinctions, and unprecedented transformations to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems across the globe. Environmental ethics is an academic subfield of philosophy concerned with normative and evaluative propositions about the world of nature and, perhaps more generally, the moral fabric of relations between human beings and the world we occupy. This Handbook contains 45 newly commissioned essays written by leading experts and emerging voices and represent some of the best and most contemporary (...) thinking in environmental ethics. The chapters range over a broad variety of issues, concepts, and perspectives that are both central to and characteristic of the field, thus providing an authoritative but accessible account of the history, analysis, and prospect of ideas that are essential to contemporary environmental ethics. (shrink)

Karen Bennett’s Making Things Up argues that talk of generation and construction, giving rise to, and getting one thing out of another are to be understood in terms of building. Building-talk is commonplace if not ubiquitous in philosophy, and so building is one of the most important philosophical notions. Making Things Up offers a refreshing perspective on the debate about structure and fundamentality. Whilst Bennett of course engages with the recent literature, she sets things up in her own terms, and (...) with the big picture in mind. The result is a thorough and compelling account of how reality is constructed. (shrink)

Bioethics coverage of the recent Ebola outbreak neglected the ethical issues associated with aspects of the outbreak having environmental significance. The neglect of environmental dimensions is symptomatic of the way that the current institutionalization of bioethics as a field of inquiry separates medical and environmental expertise. As visionaries who are recognizing the need for better integration of human and veterinary medicine with environmental health are starting to call for “One Health”, it is now time to recognize the need for “One (...) Bioethics.”. (shrink)

In the light of the modern idea of a sovereign and self-transparent subject, the paper evaluates the philosophical and ethical relevance of Bildung. As a first step, (the early) Nietzsche's and Adorno's criticism of Bildung is explicated, a criticism based upon the thinkers' critical stance towards the modern epistemological relation of subject and object. However, neither thinker abandons the concept of Bildung. The second part of the paper accordingly reconstructs Nietzsche's and Adorno's adherence to Bildung understood as a different relationship (...) of subject and object within Bildung. In the paper's concluding reflections there is an attempt to assess the systematic educational consequences, and to shed light on the ethical relevance, of a non-transparent subject of Bildung. (shrink)

Many theories of complex cognitive-motor skill learning are built on the notion that basic cognitive processes group actions into easy-to-perform sequences. The present work examines predictions derived from laboratory-based studies of motor chunking and motor preparation using data collected from the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. We examined 996,163 action sequences in the telemetry data of 3,317 players across seven levels of skill. As predicted, the latency to the first action is delayed relative to the other actions in the (...) group. Other predictions, inspired by the memory drum theory of Henry and Rogers, received only weak support. (shrink)

This article examines the characteristics of a new form of visibility which has become a pervasive feature of the modern world and which is linked to the development of communication media. With the development of the media, the visibility of individuals, actions and events is severed from the sharing of a common locale: one no longer has to be present in the same spatial-temporal setting in order to see the other or to witness an action or event. The rise of (...) this new form of mediated visibility has transformed the relations between visibility and power. Thanks to mediated visibility, political rulers are able to appear before their subjects in ways and on a scale that never existed previously. Skilful politicians exploit this to their advantage; with the help of their PR consultants and communications advisers, they seek to create and sustain a basis of support by managing their visibility in the mediated arena of modern politics. But mediated visibility is a double-edged sword: it also creates new risks for political leaders, who find themselves exposed to new kinds of dangers. Hence the visibility created by the media becomes the source of a new and distinctive kind of fragility. However much political leaders try to manage their visibility, they cannot completely control it: mediated visibility can slip out of their grasp and can, on occasion, work against them. (shrink)

Systems theory holds that emotional responses derive from the continuous, mutual interaction between multiple neurobiological and behavioral systems associated with emotion as they are contextually embedded. Developmental systems theory portrays these systems as becoming progressively integrated as they mature. From this perspective, regulatory processes are incorporated into emotion throughout the course of emotional development. This article examines the implications of developmental systems theory in understanding the association between emotion and emotion regulation, enlisting the functionalist orientation of contemporary emotions theory, a (...) broad portrayal of emotion regulatory influences, and attention to the role of context in the management of emotion. (shrink)

This is a study in the philosophy of social science. It takes the form of a comparative critique of three contemporary approaches: ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics and critical theory, represented here respectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Part I is devoted to an exposition of these authors' views and of the traditions to which they belong. Its unifying thread is their common concern with language, a concern which nonetheless reveals important differences of approach. For whereas ordinary language (...) philosophers tend to treat linguistic activity as the ultimate object of inquiry, both Ricoeur and Habermas regard it as a medium which betrays more fundamental dimensions of human experience and the social world. Part II complements the exposition with a critical analysis of its central themes: the conceptualisation of action, the methodology of interpretation, and the theory of reference and truth. The author defends many aspects of the work of Ricoeur and Habermas, such as the emphasis on power and ideology, the strategy of depth interpretation, and the link between consensus and truth; but he argues that there are serious deficiencies and obscurities in their work. He proposes solutions to these difficulties and concludes with a sketch of a critical and rationally justified theory for the interpretation of action - a critical hermeneutics. (shrink)

Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano, or individual, level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro-orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical insight into the impact of social contracting on day-to-day human interaction. We then (...) articulate several potentially testable propositions that emerge from this nano-level perspective. (shrink)

In this article, I defend Neo-Gricean accounts of language and communication from an objection about linguistic development. According to this objection, children are incapable of understanding the minds of others in the way that Neo-Gricean accounts require until long after they learn the meanings of words, are able to produce meaningful utterances, and understand the meaningful utterances of others. In answering this challenge, I outline exactly what sorts of psychological states are required by Neo-Gricean accounts and conclude that there is (...) sufficient evidence that these types of psychological states are present in and capable of being understood by the children in question. (shrink)

Constructing Marxist Ethics offers a series of compelling essays that reassess the role of ethics and moral values in Marxist theory and philosophy.

There is a long-standing myth that the history of modern India was foretold at the beginning of the nineteenth century by British liberals who predicted that the enlightened despotic rule of India's new conquerors would, by its beneficial effects, improve the native character and institutions sufficiently to prepare the people of that country one day to govern themselves. Lord William Bentinck, a disciple of Jeremy Bentham, while presenting as governor-general his case for the opening up of India to European settlers, (...) speculated on the possibility of “a vast change to have occurred in the frame of society . . . which would imply that the time had arrived when it would be wise for England to leave India to govern itself”, but added that such change “can scarcely be looked for in centuries to come”. The doctrinal basis within liberal theory for justifying a democratic country like Britain exercising despotic power in colonies such as Ireland and India was securely laid out by mid-century liberals such as John Stuart Mill. The project of “improvement” was revived at the end of the nineteenth century by Gladstonian liberals who inducted elite Indians into new representative institutions based on a very narrow franchise in preparation for some form of self-government. When power was ultimately transferred to the rulers of a partitioned subcontinent in 1947, the history of liberal progress in India was complete. The storyline was laid out, for instance, in Thompson and Garratt's Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India or in Percival Spear's revised edition of the hugely successful textbook by Vincent Smith. Even nationalist Indian scholars adopted at least a part of this story, nowhere more so than in the histories of constitutional law which traced the foundations of the postcolonial Indian republic to the progressive expansion of liberal state institutions under British rule. (shrink)

This volume offers a critical re-assessment of the thought of Ernst Bloch, best-known for his groundbreaking study The Principle of Hope and one of the most significant European thinkers and public intellectuals of the twentieth century. It explores Bloch's life, work and reception; his debt to Marx and Hegel; his central concepts of hope and utopia; his affinities with philosophers such as Gramsci and Zizek; and his radical reframing of our understanding of history, society and culture. Above all, this volume (...) examines the relevance of Bloch's ideas today, in a world still shot through with economic inequality and social injustice. Contributors are: Agata Bielik-Robson, Ivan Boldyrev, Henk de Berg, Sam Dolbear, Vincent Geoghegan, Holger Glinka, Loren Goldman, Douglas Kellner, Cat Moir, Jan Rehmann, Nina Rismal, Johan Siebers, and Peter Thompson. (shrink)

Rousseau’s project in his Social Contract was to construct a conception of human subjectivity and political institutions that would transcend what he saw to be the limits of liberal political theory of his time. I take this as a starting point to put forward an interpretation of his theory of the general will as a kind of social cognition that is able to preserve individual autonomy and freedom alongside concerns with the collective welfare of the community. But whereas many have (...) seen Rousseau’s ideas as a prelude to communitarianism or authoritarianism, we should instead see his project as articulating an alternative model of moral-cognitivist reasoning. In order to provide a framework for this interpretation, I propose reading his conception of the general will through the theory of collective intentionality and social ontology. I end with a consideration of how this interpretation of the general will can provide a more satisfying understanding of political and practical rationality contemporary debates over republicanism and liberalism. (shrink)

Rev. version of the author's Habilitationsschrift, Martin-Luther-Universitèat.

The role of private food standards in agriculture is increasingly raising questions of legitimacy, particularly in light of the impacts such standards may have on food producers. While much work has been carried out at a macro policy level for developing countries, there have been relatively few empirical case studies that focus on particular food supply chains, and even fewer studies still of the impact of private standards on developed countries such as Australia. This study seeks to address this imbalance, (...) with a particular focus on examining the impact of private standards on an Australian vegetable supply food system in North Tasmania as well as tracing the impact of perceived and actual power relations among actors. Applying a governance framework and adopting a Foucauldian position we show that private standards are a “technology of power” that have risen out of a crisis discourse in the mid-1990s about on-farm food safety. Private standards have the effect of using knowledge from particular actors to establish truths about good agricultural practice (GAP), however we show that Tasmanian vegetable growers are not docile bodies and are employing alternative knowledge and technologies of power to challenge how GAP is implemented on-farm. (shrink)

Examining the role of dispositions (potentials and propensities) in both physics and psychology reveals that they are commonly derivative dispositions, so called because they derive from other dispositions. Furthermore, when they act, they produce further propensities. Together, therefore, they appear to form discrete degrees within a structure of multiple generative levels. It is then constructively hypothesized that minds and physical nature are themselves discrete degrees within some more universal structure. This gives rise to an effective dualism of mind and nature, (...) but one according to which they are still constantly related by causal connections. I suggest a few of the unified principles of operation of this more complicated but universal structure. (shrink)

Kant s view of the imagination is surrounded by one of the most salient and obscure discussions on his critical philosophy. Due to revisions and emendations and a seeming change in doctrine from the first to the third Critique, Kant s considered view of the imagination remains unclear. This collection of essays from Kant scholars illuminates the various treatments of imagination through its development in Kant s critical works. ".

In two experiments we tested the hypothesis that the mechanisms that produce belief bias generalise across reasoning tasks. In formal reasoning (i.e., syllogisms) judgements of validity are influenced by actual validity, believability of the conclusions, and an interaction between the two. Although apparently analogous effects of belief and argument strength have been observed in informal reasoning, the design of those studies does not permit an analysis of the interaction effect. In the present studies we redesigned two informal reasoning tasks: the (...) Argument Evaluation Task (AET) and a Law of Large Numbers (LLN) task in order to test the similarity of the phenomena concerned. Our findings provide little support for the idea that belief bias on formal and informal reasoning is a unitary phenomenon. First, there was no correlation across individuals in the extent of belief bias shown on the three tasks. Second, evidence for belief by strength interaction was observed only on AET and under conditions not required for the comparable finding on syllogistic reasoning. Finally, we found that while conclusion believability strongly influenced assessments of arguments strength, it had a relatively weak influence on the verbal justifications offered on the two informal reasoning tasks. (shrink)

Although the word 'sustainability' is used broadly, scientific approaches to sustainability fall into one of two competing paradigms. Following the influential Brundtland report of 1987. some theorists identify sustainability with some form of resource availability, and develop indicators for sustainability that stress capital depletion. This approach has spawned debates about the intersubstitutivity of capitals, with many environmental theorists arguing that at some point, depletion of natural capital cannot be offset by increases in human or social capital. The alternative approach is (...) grounded in stock and flow systems systems modeling, and defines sustainability through indicators that determine whether the system structure is robust (e.g. resists perturbation), resilient (recovers after disruption) and adaptive (capable of change in response to external conditions). Both paradigms have applications in economics and ecology. (shrink)

This paper was written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the University of Nottingham’s Easter School on “Issues in Agricultural Bioethics,” organized by Ben Mepham in 1993. At that time, agricultural ethics was being envisioned as an interdisciplinary sub-discipline comparable to that of medical ethics. Agricultural ethicists would co-operate with other agricultural faculty to produce careful articulation, analysis and critique of norms and values being implicitly assumed by agricultural researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Roughly two factors have conspired to substantially (...) limit the realization of that vision in the intervening 20 years. First, the institutional environment within agricultural universities was far less conducive to such an activity than medical schools. Second, while the rise of a food-oriented social movement might have provided new opportunities for food ethics, the social movement orientation has actually constrained the kind of philosophical work typically undertaken by bioethicists. The paper ends with a brief note calling for a renewal of the original vision. (shrink)

Practitioners’ ethical orientation and responses vary between practice settings. Yet, currently, the ethics for midwifery practice that is explicit in the literature and which provides the ideals of socialization into practice, is that of bio(medical)ethics. Traditional bioethics, developed because of World War II atrocities and increased scientific research, is based on moral philosophy, normative theory, abstract universal principles and objective problem solving, all of which focus on right and wrong ‘action’ for resolving dilemmas. They exclude context and relationship. Personal narratives (...) of mothers and midwives contest the appropriateness of these accepted values and systems for childbirth because they induce conflict between work-place/service provider ethics and personal/professional midwifery ethics. In contrast to the disembedded and disembodied approach of biomedical ethics, an ethically adequate response in midwifery practice resonates more with the ethics of intimates, such as feminist virtue ethics. (shrink)