Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 419 Paul Amar Insurgent African Intimacies in Pandemic Times: Deimperial Queer Logics of China’s New Global Family inWolf Warrior 2 This essay offers a new paradigm of “deimperial queer analysis” that reveals the tension between the People’s Republic of China’s extractive expansionism in Africa and its claim to solidarity with Africans against white supremacy and Northern (...) imperialism. China has been labeled an “anti-imperial empire” that forcefully challenges previous Euro-American imperial legacies—all while it verges on reenacting them.1 A critical way it resolves this geopolitical tension is through the articulation of a mission for global China, and since 2017, the heroic filmic fictional figure of the “Wolf Warrior” anchors such an approach. The Wolf Warrior is a gorgeous, muscled, Chinese male rogue soldier in exile who adventures through the archipelago of the PRC’s shipping, mining, and medical projects across the Global South to battle white mercenaries, corrupt Asian businessmen, and local pirates—all while saving Africa from a ravaging pandemic. Extending a hugely popular film series, the release in 2017 of the blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 (abbreviated below as Wolf 2) unleashed a worldwide social media frenzy as well as a revolution in diplomatic tone and protocol for China. In these ways, Wolf Warrior 2 came to mark the debut of the global PRC as a hegemonic structure 1. David Armitage, “The Anti-Imperial Empire?” Times Literary Supplement, no. 6018, August 3, 2018, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-anti-imperialempire -american. 420 Paul Amar of feeling with an attendant popular cultural logic, launching a cast of military characters, humanitarian imaginaries, and gendered rebranding initiatives. These fused into a global cultural megaproject with the PRC presenting itself as a leader in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Global South—a time the PRC has officially branded as its “Rejuvenation Era” of “Stepping Out into the World.” This essay shows how exactly this Wolf Warrior imagination has legitimized a new global regime, but I also reveal how, paradoxically, the Wolf Warrior regime has offered a distinct, more subversive worlding project. I argue here that the utopia immanent in this project can be revealed by interpretively turning this Wolf universe inside out through a deimperial queer analysis that honors and combines a Third World feminist lens and the “Asia as Method” approach with Danmei/BL and Slash queer-feminist fanfiction hacks. Danmei is a Chinese (originally mainly Tawainese) fanfiction genre that subverts mainstream heteronormative narratives by erotically aestheticizing and renarrating male-male intimacies within mainstream plotlines from feminist perspectives. BL (short for “boylove ”) is a similar Japanese fanfiction genre, and Slash is the term used in English for the queer/feminist hacking and excavation of sublimated and particularly utopian gender and sexuality plots from within seemingly conventional heteronormative or patriarchal popular-cultural texts. The everted or inside-out epistemology given expression here uses a set of non-phallogocentric lenses and decolonial feminist decoding practices. At stake is the urgency of not repeating the epistemic violence of conventional “anti-imperial” arguments, which tend to be heteronormative, statist, macho, and monolithic. Instead, the form of critique elaborated here brings questions of gender, race, and sexuality to the fore through a three-part approach. First, I identify the homoerotic register of the techno-infrastructural elements in the film. I generate close readings that detail the visual and genre codes of battle scenes, thug subjects, and piracy plots that forge a homoerotic model of rogue or “wolf” governmentality and that act as a metaphor for China’s techno -infrastructural rule. Second, this essay explores the gendered hauntings of supremacist humanism. I deploy a decolonial feminist lens to map the configuration of African women, female doctors, Maoist women insurgents, and feminized “flowerboys” as a rebel protectorate overseen by China’s phallic prerogative that is itself haunted by the specters of Euro-American humanist betrayal and white supremacy. Third, Paul Amar 421 I trace queer kinship utopias. I demonstrate that Wolf Warrior 2 rejuvenates a non-Western, queer, globalist kinship structure that triangulates Asian, white, and Black through adoption dramas and bromance bonds. Through these intimacies, an... (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of ‘the sovereign’, ‘state of exception’ and ‘bare life’ have been used by political theorists, particularly since the declaration of the Global War on Terror and during the more recent age of wars of humanitarian intervention, to conceptualize the sovereignty exercised by security states. These state processes have been mirrored by absolutization within some branches of political theory, conflating Foucauldian concepts of biopolitical sovereignty and circulatory governmentality with notions of absolutist rule, and narrowing optics for interpreting popular (...) mobilizations around gendered ‘human security’ projects, emergency regimes and moralizing repression. Suggesting more productive directions for theory, this article generates a close reading of female activists working in an unexpected industry in Egypt who have struggled to invert and subvert absolutist and moralizing framings and have generated their own theory through practice. The ‘Natashas of Cairo’ – well organized and transnationally linked belly dancers – successfully promoted gendered popular sovereignty in remarkable campaigns between 2002 and 2006, utilizing personal-rights litigation to create frameworks to render the absolutist state more accountable; establish labor solidarities that crossed international boundaries as well as class boundaries; and articulate an alternative moral regime for dance work that rejected both ‘pornification’ and the ‘respectability politics’ of professionalization. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of ‘the sovereign’, ‘state of exception’ and ‘bare life’ have been used by political theorists, particularly since the declaration of the Global War on Terror and during the more recent age of wars of humanitarian intervention, to conceptualize the sovereignty exercised by security states. These state processes have been mirrored by absolutization within some branches of political theory, conflating Foucauldian concepts of biopolitical sovereignty and circulatory governmentality with notions of absolutist rule, and narrowing optics for interpreting popular (...) mobilizations around gendered ‘human security’ projects, emergency regimes and moralizing repression. Suggesting more productive directions for theory, this article generates a close reading of female activists working in an unexpected industry in Egypt who have struggled to invert and subvert absolutist and moralizing framings and have generated their own theory through practice. The ‘Natashas of Cairo’ – well organized and transnationally linked belly dancers – successfully promoted gendered popular sovereignty in remarkable campaigns between 2002 and 2006, utilizing personal-rights litigation to create frameworks to render the absolutist state more accountable; establish labor solidarities that crossed international boundaries as well as class boundaries; and articulate an alternative moral regime for dance work that rejected both ‘pornification’ and the ‘respectability politics’ of professionalization. (shrink)

Essential philosophical question according to Paul Ricœur: the ontological and epistemological possibility of the understanding of the self. Philosophy as reflection, ethics and herrneneutics; reflection taken as a task of position, interpretation and appropriation of the self; ethics as the effort of emancipation is required; hermeneutics as ontic-existential investigation which deals with the situation of sharing belonging (pre-understanding) and the critical distanciation which come with or judge rival or opposing interpretations; understanding of the self as a consequence an a (...) unfinished interpretation of the envolving significant signs (symbols and texts); interpretation as dialectic relation between understanding (synthesis, truthful guess and appropriation as far as reference is concemed) and explanation (analysis, clarification and methodological validation as far as sense is concemed) in the dynamic process of reading. Ricœur’s perspective – framed in reflexive philosophy and as a hermeneutic variation of Husserl’s phenomenology starting from the epistemology to the ontology of the understanding. (shrink)

Há muitos pontos de concordância entre Frege e os neokantianos. Isso vale especialmente para os representantes do neokantismo da teoria do valor ou do Sudoeste alemão na tradição de Hermann Lotze. Não discutiremos aqui todos os aspectos dessa proximidade; de acordo com o tema que propomos, ficaremos restritos à filosofia da matemática. A primeira parte do artigo tratará da relação entre aritmética e geometria, mostrando surpreendentes semelhanças entre Frege e o neokantiano Otto Liebmann. A segunda parte discutirá as diferentes recepções (...) do logicismo de Frege por Jonas Cohn, Paul Natorp, Heinrich Rickert, Ernst Cassirer e Bruno Bauch. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the (...) period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Banks provide a valuable but inherently unstable combination of deposit‐taking and lending functions that were successfully held together for several decades after the New Deal by tough banking rules. The weakening of the rules after the 1970s promoted the displacement of traditional relationship‐based banking with securitized, arms‐length alternatives that encouraged banks to undertake activities about which bankers lacked deep relationship‐based knowledge of the risks. Ironically, this risky behavior, encouraged by loosened regulation, was reinforced by progressively tightened securities regulation, which (...) promoted stock‐market liquidity but also deprived large banks (and other publicly traded companies) of oversight by investors with “insiders’” knowledge. Both the underregulation of banking and the overregulation of securities were underpinned by economic theories that favored blind diversification in liquid, anonymous markets, and that ignored the value of relationship‐based knowledge and case‐by‐case due diligence. (shrink)

Descartes is widely portrayed as the arch proponent of “the epistemological transparency of thought” (or simply, “Transparency”). The most promising version of this view—Transparency-through-Introspection—says that introspecting (i.e., inwardly attending to) a thought guarantees certain knowledge of that thought. But Descartes rejects this view and provides numerous counterexamples to it. I argue that, instead, Descartes’s theory of self-knowledge is just an application of his general theory of knowledge. According to his general theory, certain knowledge is acquired only through clear and distinct (...) intellection. Thus, in his view, certain knowledge of one’s thoughts is acquired only through clear and distinct intellection of one’s thoughts. Introspection is a form of intellection and it can be clear and distinct. Ordinarily, however, introspection isn’t clear and distinct but is instead confused with dubitable perceptions of bodies. To make introspection clear and distinct, we need to “sharply separate” it from all perceptions of bodies by doubting all perceptions of bodies. Without such radical doubt, introspection remains confused and we lack certain knowledge not just of the specific features of our thoughts, but even of the minimal claim that a thought exists. Far from being the high priest of Transparency, Descartes is radically opposed to it. (shrink)

Si le tragique n'est pas le propre de la tragédie grecque mais bien celui de 'l'être au monde de l'homme', sa conceptualisation n'advient qu'avec Wilderlin lorsque celui-ci s'approprie la question 'Comment lit-on la tragédie?', non plus selon son acception poétique, mais en tant que forme philosophique. Et si l'on suit sa réflexion, à la question 'Qu'est-ce que le tragique?', on notera qu'il est une façon d'être au monde de manière spéculative. L'union des contraires, de la poésie et de la sagesse, (...) voilà ce qui a tant plu à Empédocle, Hölderlin et Nietzsche. Si Je est un autre, la pensée tragique représente l'individu conscient de lui-même dans sa totalité. Mais, un personnage tragique n'est-il pas destiné à exister dans l'Histoire? Pour ces trois poètes, il s'agissait de traduire le monde du symbole, de la parabole, ou de l'allégorie en une nouvelle langue. En relisant de cette manière le tragique du monde, se découvre un sens qu'Empédocle, Hölderlin ou Nietzsche illuminèrent de leur regard: la mort dans les esquisses d'une tragédie pour Hölderlin et Nietzsche, ou la chute du démon chez Empédocle, traduisent la relation des oppositions dans l'absolu de la disparition"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In _Matter and Consciousness_, Paul Churchland presents a concise and contemporary overview of the philosophical issues surrounding the mind and explains the main theories and philosophical positions that have been proposed to solve them. Making the case for the relevance of theoretical and experimental results in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence for the philosophy of mind, Churchland reviews current developments in the cognitive sciences and offers a clear and accessible account of the connections to philosophy of mind. For (...) this third edition, the text has been updated and revised throughout. The changes range from references to the iPhone's "Siri" to expanded discussions of the work of such contemporary philosophers as David Chalmers, John Searle, and Thomas Nagel. Churchland describes new research in evolution, genetics, and visual neuroscience, among other areas, arguing that the philosophical significance of these new findings lies in the support they tend to give to the reductive and eliminative versions of materialism. Matter and Consciousness, written by the most distinguished theorist and commentator in the field, offers an authoritative summary and sourcebook for issues in philosophy of mind. It is suitable for use as an introductory undergraduate text. (shrink)

The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.

This book demonstrates how children's imagination makes a continuing contribution to their cognitive and emotional development.

Recently, the second author, Briseid, and Safarik introduced nonstandard Dialectica, a functional interpretation capable of eliminating instances of familiar principles of nonstandard arithmetic—including overspill, underspill, and generalizations to higher types—from proofs. We show that the properties of this interpretation are mirrored by first-order logic in a constructive sheaf model of nonstandard arithmetic due to Moerdijk, later developed by Palmgren, and draw some new connections between nonstandard principles and principles that are rejected by strict constructivism. Furthermore, we introduce a variant of (...) the Diller–Nahm interpretation with two different kinds of quantifiers, similar to Hernest’s light Dialectica interpretation, and show that one can obtain nonstandard Dialectica by weakening the computational content of the existential quantifiers—a process called herbrandization. We also define a constructive sheaf model mirroring this new functional interpretation, and show that the process of herbrandization has a clear meaning in terms of these sheaf models. (shrink)

The moment when a person’s actual relationships fall short of desired relationships is commonly identified as the etiological moment of chronic loneliness, which can lead to physical and psychological effects like depression, worse recovery from illness and increased mortality. But, this etiology fails to explain the nature and severe impact of loneliness. Here, we use philosophical analysis and neuroscience to show that human beings develop and maintain our world-picture (our sense of what is true, important, and good) through joint attention (...) and action, motivated by friendship, in the Aristotelian sense of “other selves” who share a sense of the true and the good, and desire the good for each other as much as for themselves. The true etiological event of loneliness is the moment one’s world-picture becomes unshared. The pathogenesis is a resultant decay of our world-picture, with brain and behavior changes following as sequelae. (shrink)

The twentieth century has witnessed an unprecedented 'crisis in the foundations of mathematics', featuring a world-famous paradox (Russell's Paradox), a challenge to 'classical' mathematics from a world-famous mathematician (the 'mathematical intuitionism' of Brouwer), a new foundational school (Hilbert's Formalism), and the profound incompleteness results of Kurt Gödel. In the same period, the cross-fertilization of mathematics and philosophy resulted in a new sort of 'mathematical philosophy', associated most notably (but in different ways) with Bertrand Russell, W. V. Quine, and Gödel himself, (...) and which remains at the focus of Anglo-Saxon philosophical discussion. The present collection brings together in a convenient form the seminal articles in the philosophy of mathematics by these and other major thinkers. It is a substantially revised version of the edition first published in 1964 and includes a revised bibliography. The volume will be welcomed as a major work of reference at this level in the field. (shrink)

Contributed articles with reference to India.

Multidimensional practical demand has made Islamology one of the most "trendy" branches of Oriental studies and has created a host of serious difficulties and problems associated with an adequate scientific response to the "Islamic challenge". Excessive politicization of the study of such a phenomenon as Islamic fundamentalism, radicalism in the world, undoubtedly, undermines the true scientific knowledge, preventing the specialists from understanding this complex phenomenon.

Le SMSI a affiché et promu une démarche de multipartenariat entre gouvernements, monde économique et société civile. Nous avons étudié la liste de diffusion électronique de l'un des caucus, « Civil Society - Internet Governance », au long d'une période clé de l'initiative onusienne. En analysant les modalités des échanges, nous nous sommes demandé quels types de tactiques et de stratégies émergent de ce dispositif, et dans quelle mesure il participe du débat public. Enfin, nous nous sommes interrogés sur les (...) limites du rôle effectif de la « société civile » dans un contexte international particulier.WSIS posted and promoted a multi-stakeholder approach between governments, civil society and business world. We studied the electronic mailing list of one of the caucus, "Civil Society - Internet Governance" during a key period of the UN initiative. By analyzing the terms of trade, we asked what kind of tactics and strategies emerge from this device, and how it participates in the public debate. Finally, we asked about the limits of the actual role of "civil society" in a particular international context. (shrink)

For humans, Artificial Intelligence operates more like a Rorschach test, as it is expected that intelligent machines will reflect humans' cognitive and physical behaviours. The concept of intelligence, however, is often confused with consciousness, and it is believed that the progress of intelligent machines will eventually result in them becoming conscious in the future. Nevertheless, what is overlooked is how the exploration of Artificial Intelligence also pertains to the development of human consciousness. An excellent example of this can be seen (...) in the film Being John Malkovich (1999). In the film, different characters have their perceptions altered as a result of hacking into the mind of John Malkovich, which produces sensations that may have remained hidden to their consciousness due to their dis-abilities. This article engages with the research question: Can the symbiotic relationship between humans and machines trigger an artificial consciousness for humans? An artificially created consciousness is the premise that a machine can generate knowledge about an individual that is not already present in the person. For the same purpose, the article takes the cinematic text Being John Malkovich by Spike Jonze for exploring concepts such as human/robot rights, virtual sex, virtual rape, and bodily disability, which are essential topics in the midst of increasing human- Artificial Intelligence interaction. The purpose of this article is to contribute towards the creation of a better understanding of Artificial Intelligence, particularly from the perspective of film studies and philosophy, by highlighting the potential of Artificial Intelligence as a vessel for exploring human consciousness. (shrink)

Inspired by the Studies on authoritarian personality and based on contemporary research on authoritarianism in Brazil, we will analyze the construction of the idol aura surrounding former president Bolsonaro, which allowed the far right to be elected and remain in power until the last elections in 2022. We see his rise as mostly due to the digital violence that largely benefited his campaign and was directed against the block of left-wing candidates. So as to clarify this issue, we will revisit (...) the sociohistorical and psycho-political fundamentals of the antidemocratic and ethnocentric behaviors spurred by that leadership that became idolized. We will also outline an emancipatory, antiracist, culturally relevant and decolonial education, as a way to provide what Adorno regarded as being the antidote to the reemergence of a regressive barbarism. In the case of Brazil, barbarism refers to the remnants of the slave system implemented in the country for three and a half centuries, whose destructive potential was awakened under Bolsonaro’s government, given the latent antidemocratic and authoritarian tendencies in our society. (shrink)

Zusammenfassungen der Referate in französischer Sprache.

An agent often does not have precise probabilities or utilities to guide resolution of a decision problem. I advance a principle of rationality for making decisions in such cases. To begin, I represent the doxastic and conative state of an agent with a set of pairs of a probability assignment and a utility assignment. Then I support a decision principle that allows any act that maximizes expected utility according to some pair of assignments in the set. Assuming that computation of (...) an option's expected utility uses comprehensive possible outcomes that include the option's risk, no consideration supports a stricter requirement. (shrink)

Schelling und Hegel benutzen in ihren philosophischen Texten mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Modelle wie Unendlichkeit oder Gleichgewicht. Die Strukturen dieser Begriffe liefern einen Massstab fur den Vergleich der Positionen Schellings und Hegels, der fur Schellings Identitatsphilosophie und Hegels erste Jenaer Schriften durchgefuhrt wird. Als wichtigstes Resultat kann eine grundlegende Differenz zwischen beiden Positionen bereits um 1801 nachgewiesen und gezeigt werden, dass diese auf einer unterschiedlichen Auffassung der Rolle des Absoluten beruht.

Like Plato, Protagoras held that young children learn virtue from fine examples in poetry. Unlike Plato, Protagoras taught adults by correcting the diction of poets. In this paper I ask what his standard of correctness might be, and what benefit he intended his students to take from exercises in correction. If his standard of correctness is truth, then he may intend his students to learn by questioning the content of poems; that would be suggestive of Plato’s program in Republic III. (...) But his standard is more likely to be the accurate use of language; in that case he would intend his students to learn to express their thoughts clearly enough that their audience would understand what they were saying. That standard would be independent of the truth of what they are saying; and that would be a precursor to modern techniques by which we try to teach speaking and writing. Truth is not so easy to escape, however, and we shall see that Protagoras’ exercise must assume that the poet is trying to tell the truth. (shrink)

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und (...) Literaturwissenschaften sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)