This article explores the role of the five “abodes” (or “intellectual powers” or “mental properties”) of the Light Realm in the narrative of Mani’s Living Gospel according to the Coptic Synaxeis codex. Far from being spared in the war effort (as it appears from Theodore bar Koni’s report on Mani’s doctrine), these five powers can be seen in Mani’s narrative to be active contributors not only to the generation of each divine persona newly called into being but also in the (...) actual fight against the forces of Darkness, securing their final defeat. (shrink)

Oversight of human gene transfer research presents an important model with potential application to oversight of nanobiology research on human participants. Gene therapy oversight adds centralized federal review at the National Institutes of Health's Office of Biotechnology Activities and its Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee to standard oversight of human subjects research at the researcher's institution and at the federal level by the Office for Human Research Protections. The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research oversees human gene (...) transfer research in parallel, including approval of protocols and regulation of products. This article traces the evolution of this dual oversight system; describes how the system is already addressing nanobiotechnology in gene transfer: evaluates gene therapy oversight based on public opinion, the literature, and preliminary expert elicitation; and offers lessons of the gene therapy oversight experience for oversight of nanobiotechnology. (shrink)

Philosophy begins with wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plato and Aristotle did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion or concept is important? What is wonder.

Several publications with healthcare professionals, such as psychotherapists, have shown a significant difference in personality styles in practitioners using hypnosis compared to those not using hypnosis. To investigate differences in personality styles, dentists were contacted to participate in a personality-inventory [Personality Style and Disorder Inventory ] online survey. Dentists using hypnosis were compared to dentists not using hypnosis. Results show that hypnosis-practicing dentists score significantly higher in the intuitive/schizotypal ST personality style compared to non-hypnosis-practicing dentists. Female dentists scored significantly higher (...) in intuitive/schizotypal ST and unselfish/self-sacrificing SL in the HYP DGZH sample but only in unselfish/self-sacrificing SL in the NONHYP DENT sample. The percentage of women was similar in both samples. Intuitive/schizotypal ST was found to be the predominant personality style of men who are interested in or use hypnosis, metaphorically so-called “homo hypnoticus.” Within the limitations of this cross-sectional non-interventional observational online-questionnaire study, results expand this notion to the so-called “homo hypnoticus dentalis.” However, further research on the subject is needed to investigate and confirm this personality type in other than the German-speaking DACH countries. (shrink)

Cognitive functions like perception, memory, language, or consciousness are based on highly parallel and distributed information processing by the brain. One of the major unresolved questions is how information can be integrated and how coherent representational states can be established in the distributed neuronal systems subserving these functions. It has been suggested that this so-called ''binding problem'' may be solved in the temporal domain. The hypothesis is that synchronization of neuronal discharges can serve for the integration of distributed neurons into (...) cell assemblies and that this process may underlie the selection of perceptually and behaviorally relevant information. As we intend to show here, this temporal binding hypothesis has implications for the search of the neural correlate of consciousness. We review experimental results, mainly obtained in the visual system, which support the notion of temporal binding. In particular, we discuss recent experiments on the neural mechanisms of binocular rivalry which suggest that appropriate synchronization among cortical neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli. (shrink)

Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform is an invaluable resource for policymakers, faculty, students, and anyone interested in how decisions made about the education system ultimately affect the quality of education, educational access, and social justice.

The text refers to Peter Sloterdijk‘s maybe most famous book which entails a long chapter about the Weimar Republic. This short time period of German history is seen as an exemplary historical example for a situation in which cynical thinking becomes general. In his first prominent book, he changed the leftist images and the narratives of Weimar Republic after 1968 as a laboratory for modernism and of a tragic end of revolutionary efforts. Instead the first democracy was presented as (...) an apocalyptical period in which cold intellectual affirmation was dominant. As the text argues, Sloterdijk widens the concept of cynical thinking in a way that seems to be problematic. His argumentation discusses melancholy, nihilism, social and cultural discontent under the terminological umbrella of the "cynic". (shrink)

"Charles Marville is widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the nineteenth century. Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in honor of Marville's bicentennial, Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris surveys the artist's entire career. This beautiful book, which begins with the city scenes and architectural views Marville made throughout France and Germany in the 1850s, also explores his portraits and landscapes s before turning to his photographs of Paris made both before and (...) after the city's dramatic modernization in the 1850s and 1860s. Commissioned to record the city in transition, Marville created one of the earliest and most powerful photographic series documenting urban transformation on a grand scale. Despite the importance of his work, Marville has long been an enigma in the history of photography, in part because many of the documents about his life were thought to have been lost in a fire that destroyed Paris's city hall in 1871. Based on meticulous research, this volume reveals many new insights into Marville's personal and professional biography, including the central fact that he was born Charles-Franðcois Bossu. He shed this name and adoptedthe pseudonym Marville when he began his career as an illustrator in the 1830s. With five essays by respected scholars, this book offers the first comprehensive examination of Marville's life and career and delivers the much-awaited public recognition his photographs so richly deserve"--. (shrink)

In this paper Ludwig Wittgenstein is interpreted as a philosopher of language and technology. Due to current developments, a special focus is on lifeworld practice and technoscientific research. In particular, image-interpretation is used as a concrete methodical example. Whereas in most science- or technology-related Wittgenstein interpretations the focus is on the Tractatus, the Investigations or On Certainty, in this paper the primary source is his very late triune fragment Bemerkungen über die Farben. It is argued that Wittgenstein’s approach can supplement (...) Don Ihde’s concept of material hermeneutics, and that Wittgenstein’s constructivist and pragmatist claims relate to current authors in the philosophy of technology like Peter Janich, Carl Mitcham or Jürgen Mittelstraß. Ludwig Wittgenstein enables a philosophical approach of transcendental grammars, techno-linguistic forms of life and technoscientific language games. In detail, several methodological aspects regarding relations between language and technology are summarized. Here concretely repeatability and methodical actions play major roles in uncertain situations of language and technology practice. It is shown that Wittgenstein is still underestimated in the philosophy of technology—although his thoughtful conceptualizations of language, social practice and technology bear important methodical insights for current technosciences like synthetic biology, robotics and many others. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

In dem Sammelband, der als Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Hundsnurscher erscheint, sind 47 Beiträge zu zwei thematischen Schwerpunkten versammelt, die im Werk Hundsnurschers von zentraler Bedeutung sind: Semantik und Dialoganalyse. Im ersten Teil werden neben grundlegenden Fragen der Semantik Aspekte der semantischen Beschreibung von Phraseologismen, des Fremdwortgebrauchs und des Grundwortschatzes diskutiert; neben synchronen (meist gebrauchstheoretischen) Untersuchungen zu Einzelwörtern und Quasisynonymengruppen im Deutschen stehen sprachhistorische und kontrastive Arbeiten. Vor allem mit theoretischen und methodologischen Fragen der Dialoganalyse, mit Fragen der (...) Analyse institutioneller Kommunikation (Politik, Recht, Wirtschaft) und literarischer Dialoge setzen sich die Beiträge des zweiten Teils auseinander. (shrink)

Theories of embodied cognition hypothesize interdependencies between psychological well-being and physical posture. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of objectively measuring posture, and to explore the relationship between posture and affect and other patient centered outcomes in breast cancer survivors with persistent postsurgical pain over a 12-week course of therapeutic Qigong mind-body training. Twenty-one BCS with PPSP attended group Qigong training. Clinical outcomes were pain, fatigue, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, stress and exercise self-efficacy. Posture outcomes were vertical (...) spine and vertical head angles in the sagittal plane, measured with a 3D motion capture system in three conditions: eyes open, eyes open relaxed and eyes closed. Assessments were made before and after the Qigong training. The association between categorical variables was measured by Cramer’s V. In the EO condition, most participants who improved in fatigue and anxiety scales also had better vertical head values. For the EOR condition, a moderate correlation was observed between changes in vertical head angle and changes in fatigue scale. In the EC condition, most of the participants who improved in measures of fatigue also improved vertical head angle. Additionally, pain severity decreased while vertical spine angle improved. These preliminary findings support that emotion and other patient centered outcomes should be considered within an embodied framework, and that Qigong may be a promising intervention for addressing biopsychosocially complex interventions such as PPSP in BCSs. (shrink)

El artículo se propone determinar los asuntos que competen a la filosofía y a la literatura a partir de, primero, un contexto común, el de la totalidad; y segundo, dos perspectivas, a saber, la cuestión por la relación de la filosofía y la literatura con la totalidad, y la relevancia ética y moral de dicha relación. La totalidad debe ser entendida de tres formas: la de la realidad y del mundo; la de las relaciones de los hombres con el mundo (...) y su comprensión; y, la de la vida individual. Estas variaciones del concepto son elaboradas por Peter Handke y presentadas como apoyo discursivo por Ursula Wolf. (shrink)

Summary A large survey of German and Israeli younger and older adolescents was conducted to reveal their opinions and attitudes towards violence and aggression, their personal engagement in aggressive and violent behaviors in and outside the school environment, their attitudes toward physical activity, their engagement in physical activity, and the linkage between physical activity engagement and conductance of violence and aggression. The findings point out that there are more similarities than differences between German and Israeli adolescents concerning violence and aggression (...) in and outside schools. No linkage between physical activity involvement and the extent of violent and/or aggressive acts is found. The findings pertaining adolescents’ opinions and attitudes toward aggression and violence and their behaviors in and outside school are encouraging. (shrink)

This article traces my own pedagogical journey to find strategies for teaching critical thinking that emphasize intellectual cooperation, empathy, and argument repair, a journey that found me frequently turning to sources outside of philosophy, including work in intergroup dialogue and pedagogical work in rhetoric and composition. Theoretically, the article showcases Maureen Linker’s notion of ‘cooperative reasoning’, sets it against the ‘adversary paradigm’ Janice Moulton critiques, and illustrates how Peter Elbow’s challenges to critical thinking as a ‘doubting game’ resonate with (...) Linker’s work. Practically, it illustrates the structure and the role of peer-to-peer dialogues in my own reasoning classroom, an enactment of a cooperative, belief-based approach to reasoning inspired by Linker and Elbow alike, while also learning from the methodologies of intergroup dialogue. (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)