Preparative and analytical methods developed by separation scientists have played an important role in the history of molecular biology. One such early method is gel electrophoresis, a technique that uses various types of gel as its supporting medium to separate charged molecules based on size and other properties. Historians of science, however, have only recently begun to pay closer attention to this material epistemological dimension of biomolecular science. This paper substantiates the historiographical thread that explores the relationship between modern laboratory (...) practice and the production of scientific knowledge. It traces the historical development of gel electrophoresis from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, with careful attention to the interplay between technical developments and disciplinary shifts, especially the rise of molecular biology in this time-frame. Claiming that the early 1950s marked a decisive shift in the evolution of electrophoretic methods from moving boundary to zone electrophoresis, I reconstruct various trajectories in which scientists such as Oliver Smithies sought out the most desirable solid supporting medium for electrophoretic instrumentation. Biomolecular knowledge, I argue, emerged in part from this process of seeking the most appropriate supporting medium that allowed for discrete molecular separation and visualization. The early 1950s, therefore, marked not only an important turning point in the history of separation science, but also a transformative moment in the history of the life sciences as the growth of molecular biology depended in part on the epistemological access to the molecular realm available through these evolving technologies. (shrink)

Kendler addresses three basic and interrelated questions that face all psychologists: What is the subject matter of psychology? What are the criteria for understanding psychological events? What ethical principles underlie the use of psychological knowledge? "[The book's] structure.... only hints at the literate and responsible handling of these current issues.... [it] would be enjoyable to use in teaching." --Psychological Report.

This article examines the development of koro’s epistemic status as a paradigm for understanding culture-specific disorders in modern psychiatry. Koro entered the DSM-IV as a culture-bound syndrome in 1994, and it refers to a person’s overpowering belief that his genitalia is retracting and even disappearing. I focus in particular on mental health professionals’ competing views of koro in the 1960s—as an object of psychoanalysis, a Chinese disease, and a condition predisposed by culture. At that critical juncture, transcultural psychiatrists based outside (...) of continental China—namely, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore—appropriated ideas from traditional Chinese culture to consolidate the clinical diagnosis of koro as culture-bound. This new global meaning of koro was made possible by a cohort of medical experts who encountered the phenomenon and its sufferers in Sinophone communities, but placed their contributions within the broader contours of the global reach of Anglophone psychiatric science. (shrink)

Preparative and analytical methods developed by separation scientists have played an important role in the history of molecular biology. One such early method is gel electrophoresis, a technique that uses various types of gel as its supporting medium to separate charged molecules based on size and other properties. Historians of science, however, have only recently begun to pay closer attention to this material epistemological dimension of biomolecular science. This paper substantiates the historiographical thread that explores the relationship between modern laboratory (...) practice and the production of scientific knowledge. It traces the historical development of gel electrophoresis from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, with careful attention to the interplay between technical developments and disciplinary shifts, especially the rise of molecular biology in this time-frame. Claiming that the early 1950s marked a decisive shift in the evolution of electrophoretic methods from moving boundary to zone electrophoresis, I reconstruct various trajectories in which scientists such as Oliver Smithies sought out the most desirable solid supporting medium for electrophoretic instrumentation. Biomolecular knowledge, I argue, emerged in part from this process of seeking the most appropriate supporting medium that allowed for discrete molecular separation and visualization. The early 1950s, therefore, marked not only an important turning point in the history of separation science, but also a transformative moment in the history of the life sciences as the growth of molecular biology depended in part on the epistemological access to the molecular realm available through these evolving technologies. (shrink)

A philosophical exploration of the origin and limits of the modern world.

In this dialogue, we discuss the contrast between inexorable physical laws and the semiotic freedom of life. We agree that material and symbolic structures require complementary descriptions, as do the many hierarchical levels of their organizations. We try to clarify our concepts of laws, constraints, rules, symbols, memory, interpreters, and semiotic control. We briefly describe our different personal backgrounds that led us to a biosemiotic approach, and we speculate on the future directions of biosemiotics.

In this dialogue, we discuss the contrast between inexorable physical laws and the semiotic freedom of life. We agree that material and symbolic structures require complementary descriptions, as do the many hierarchical levels of their organizations. We try to clarify our concepts of laws, constraints, rules, symbols, memory, interpreters, and semiotic control. We briefly describe our different personal backgrounds that led us to a biosemiotic approach, and we speculate on the future directions of biosemiotics.

The relationship between psychology and ethics is determined by whether psychology is conceptualized as a natural or a human science. If the former, then psychology is incapable of identifying universal moral imperatives because of the fact/value dichotomy that rejects the possibility of logically deriving moral principles or social policies from factual statements. In addition, the inevitability of moral pluralism raises the question as to how natural science methodology can select moral truths or social policies from a variety of presumed alternatives. (...) In contrast, human science psychology, which emphasizes phenomenological experience as a source of psychological truths, has attempted to bridge the fact/value gap. Upon close examination, this approach has failed to suggest a rule as to how the "correct" set of values can be identified. The conclusion is that facts cannot dictate moral principles or social policies but they can help illuminate their consequences. Policy decisions become the responsibility of a democratic society, not of psychology. (shrink)

Democracy and Authenticity examines a basic problem for liberal democracies. In a polity that is characterized by real diversity of identities and values, what kinds of justifications are appropriate for coercive government actions? In particular, this book argues that justifications that are based on particular religious or other doctrines that are not accessible to nonadherents cannot be a proper basis for government actions that affect everyone. Instead, the book develops a model of public justification that is intended to guide citizens (...) in a liberal democracy through the work of creating a politics that satisfies their responsiblities to one another. (shrink)

The contemplation of the end of life — life's ending — provokes the emotions of fear, alarm and despondency. Fears about the end of life are almost universal. The Stoic Zeno of Elea first analyzed the problem accurately when he pointed out what he thought the fundamental problems of human existence consisted of. He identified the fundamental anxieties as being fear of the gods and a fear of death. Both fears, he thought, could be therapeutically eliminated: fear of the gods (...) was pointless since they did not care about us, and fear of death could be rationalized away by reasonable philosophical argumentation. Without wishing to resurrect Zeno's arguments, one can safely say that he was spectacularly wrong in his view of the power of rational argument. The fears about life's ending are multifaceted. They consist of fears about the process of aging, the prospect of one's own dying and one's own death, and the fact that our lives and activities — as they are lived within the confines of our corporeal bodies — will come to an inevitable end.There are also problems and anxieties concerned with the fact that the passage of time and the visible effects it leaves on our physical selves make us conscious that, at some time or other, we are, like other material objects, subject to decay and wearing down. The process is a great equalizer and no one who lives long enough is spared the spectacle of witnessing and experiencing the gradual process of the decline of their physical powers and of their cognitive functions. No matter what sort of life has been led, the ending of that particular life is certain.In this paper I want to discuss some views about the nature of these fears about the later stages of life, aging, old age and death and their roots in the philosophical and metaphysical views we have come to endorse. (shrink)

In a justifiably famous passage in Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates discusses whether or not the truly wicked, those who perpetrate injustices against humankind, can be happy. This issue has been the subject of countless commentaries by moral philosophers. In the end, Socrates comes to the reassuring conclusion that the unjust cannot really be happy.It is well known of course that Socrates argues for what is called by one writer “the supreme crowning paradox” of Socratic ethics: Socrates makes the case that the (...) worst thing that can happen to a person is that he or she should commit some terrible wrong and escape the corrective influence of justice. This supremely paradoxicalsounding insight is important not only for what it tells us about Socratic thinking on ethical matters, but more importantly because of the way that the conclusion that Socrates desperately wants to draw — that the perpetrators of injustice are miserable and ultimately suffer — is one that has stimulated moral inquiry. It has led to the search by many philosophers for a master argument which might show that whatever lure immorality might have for us, it is not only bad for us, but it is ultimately irrational for us to be unjust.If shown, a persuasive argument for the ultimate irrationality of injustice would be a powerful argument for encouraging the motivation to justice and morality, however onerous the commitment to the moral conventions of our society might be. Such an argument must show that whatever might be the lure of perpetrating injustice, it is an illusion which rational argumentation can show. (shrink)

PETER GARDENFORS, Knowledge in flux: modeling the dynamics of epistemic states. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1988. viii + 262 pp. £24.75.

A developmental study of free-classification behavior within the age range of 3-1/2 to 19 years indicates that categorical responses, which are characteristic of adult behavior, increase with age while overgeneralized responses, classifications including noncategorical instances, decrease with age. Overdiscriminated responses which are incomplete categorical classifications increase from 3-1/2 to 6 years and then decrease to 19 years of age. These results are discussed within a two-stage theory of conceptual development (Kendler, 1971).

Old age represents a serious contemporary social issue. In the West, we have had a long history of derogating the old and the very status of old age. This has been true, with very limited exceptions, for the ancients, for Renaissance thinkers, and in modern times. With the greater incidence of longevity in our society, the inevitable question arises: what meanings shall we attach to old age? How can this period of the life-cycle be lived successfully given the problem that (...) old-age represents in moral and social terms? And what does “successful old age” mean?Drawing on the work of William James, particularly on some of his ethical and moral ideas, and on the specific case of Matisse, , I argue that a successful old age is possible. I argue that the key to the problem of living a successful old age requires that one leads a life of significance, where a life of significance” is one lived broadly in line with the kind of proposal advanced by William James, to wit, – that it requires a life lived with a commitment to and guided by ideals.The Jamesian ideas are unpacked. It is shown how some of the difficulties that life in old age presents can be seen in the light of a failure to find, defend, and to maintain a commitment to ideals set by oneself, thus providing confirmation of the plausibility of this Jamesian insight. (shrink)