In _Annotations_ Nahum Dimitri Chandler offers a philosophical interpretation of W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1897 American Negro Academy address, “The Conservation of Races.” Chandler approaches Du Bois as a generative and original philosophical thinker-writer on the status and historical implication of matters of human difference, both the fact of and the very idea thereof. Chandler proposes both a close reading of Du Bois’s engagement of the concept of so-called race and a deep meditation on (...) Du Bois’s conceptualization of historicity in general. He elaborates on the way Du Bois’s thought in this address can give an account of the organization of the historicity that yields the emergence of something like the African American, at once with its own internal dimensions and yet also as an originary articulation of forces and possibilities that have world historical implications. Chandler refigures Du Bois’s thought as a vital theoretical resource for rethinking our concepts of differences among humans and, so too, our understanding of modern historicity itself. (shrink)

X: The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Thought offers an original account of the African American as an object of discourse, knowledge, and general social practice, conceiving the focus of such a concern -- with W.E.B. Du Bois -- as forms of social and historical problems on an epochal scale, above all the global-level "problem of the color line," as the mark of both historical limit and possibility.

In _“Beyond This Narrow Now”_ Nahum Dimitri Chandler shows that the premises of W. E. B. Du Bois's thinking at the turn of the twentieth century stand as fundamental references for the whole itinerary of his thought. Opening with a distinct approach to the legacy of Du Bois, Chandler proceeds through a series of close readings of Du Bois's early essays, previously unpublished or seldom studied, with discrete annotations of _The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and (...) Sketches_ of 1903, elucidating and elaborating basic epistemological terms of his thought. With theoretical attention to how the African American stands as an example of possibility for Du Bois and renders problematic traditional ontological thought, Chandler also proposes that Du Bois's most well-known phrase—“the problem of the color line”—sustains more conceptual depth than has yet been understood, with pertinence for our accounts of modern systems of enslavement and imperial colonialism and the incipient moments of modern capitalization. Chandler's work exemplifies a more profound engagement with Du Bois, demonstrating that he must be re-read, appreciated, and studied anew as a philosophical writer and thinker contemporary to our time. (shrink)

"Taken as a trilogy, _consent not to be a single being_ is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of _Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination_ In _Stolen Life_—the second volume in his landmark trilogy _consent not to be a single being_—Fred Moten undertakes an expansive exploration of blackness as it relates to black life and the collective refusal of social death. (...) The essays resist categorization, moving from Moten's opening meditation on Kant, Olaudah Equiano, and the conditions of black thought through discussions of academic freedom, writing and pedagogy, non-neurotypicality, and uncritical notions of freedom. Moten also models black study as a form of social life through an engagement with Fanon, Hartman, and Spillers and plumbs the distinction between blackness and black people in readings of Du Bois and Nahum Chandler. The force and creativity of Moten's criticism resonate throughout, reminding us not only of his importance as a thinker, but of the continued necessity of interrogating blackness as a form of sociality. (shrink)

This essay seeks to set to work on the question of race and the futures of the postcolonial in post-apartheid South Africa through abiding by the site of the indeterminacy between problem and critique. Arguing that reading, in the robust sense offered by Gayatri Spivak and Stuart Hall, is a necessary and urgent response to the question, the paper examines the interventions of three key figures for thinking radical black thought in our time, namely Achille Mbembe's Critique of Black Reason, (...) Nahum Chandler's X: The Problem of the negro as a Problem for Thought, and Qadri Ismail's Culture and Eurocentrism. Through abiding by the stakes of the work of reading in this conjuncture, I argue that it is through resisting the easy route of cultural and relativized difference that the pedagogical work of reading, and teaching reading, for the future, becomes possible. (shrink)

Once referring to the debt he owed to Martin Heidegger for his research on the question of death, Emmanuel Levinas explained that, though he distinguished his work from Heidegger’s thought, he did so in spite of “whatever” the debt “every contemporary thinker” owed to Heidegger—a debt that, Levinas then quipped, one “often owes to his regrets.” Contemporary thinkers working in the field of Black Studies have acknowledged their own “debt” to the black philosopher Nahum Chandler for the concept (...) of paraontology. Fred Moten, most notably, credits Chandler for providing a conceptual opening for a renewed thinking of blackness’ modes of resisting ongoing regimes of racial predation. Typifying disturbance, therefore, paraontology offers us the possibility of considering blackness beyond (though always with and against) the violence of its constitution. To heed the ramifications of transformative events, I attempt to measure those hermeneutical passages often compressed by the force of such groundbreaking discursive moments. Thus, responding to Chandler’s wish for his concerns to remain “perennial” rather than “fashionable,” I trace the history of the concept of paraontology back to its first use by Heidegger’s student Oskar Becker, whose main concern uncannily echoes the concept’s seemingly axiomatic use in Black Studies: namely, a radical disruption in the hegemonic and purist logic of ontology. (shrink)

Flow is a state of full task engagement that is accompanied with low-levels of self-referential thinking. Flow is considered highly relevant for human performance and well-being and has, therefore, been studied extensively. Yet, the neurocognitive processes of flow remain largely unclear. In the present mini-review we focus on how the brain's locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system may be involved in a range of behavioral and subjective manifestations of flow. The LC-NE system regulates decisions regarding task engagement vs. disengagement. This is doneviadifferent (...) modes of baseline and stimulus-evoked norepinephrine release. We emphasize the theoretical and empirical overlap between the LC-NE system and flow. For both, a match between a person's skill and task challenge is important in order to induce high levels task-related attention. Moreover, psychophysiological indicators of LC-NE system activity, such as eye pupil diameter and arousal are also sensitive to flow states. Flow is related to arousal in an inverted U-shape. Similarly, in theories on the LC-NE system, task engagement is highest with intermediate levels of arousal. We argue that knowledge about the role of the LC-NE system in establishing the flow experience may help to gain fundamental knowledge of flow and can contribute to unifying various empirical findings on this topic. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

Controlled donation after circulatory determination of death (cDCDD) is an important strategy for increasing the pool of eligible organ donors.

Fairness is central to the ethical and responsible development and use of AI systems, with a large number of frameworks and formal notions of algorithmic fairness being available. However, many of the fairness solutions proposed revolve around technical considerations and not the needs of and consequences for the most impacted communities. We therefore want to take the focus away from definitions and allow for the inclusion of societal and relational aspects to represent how the effects of AI systems impact and (...) are experienced by individuals and social groups. In this paper, we do this by means of proposing the ACROCPoLis framework to represent allocation processes with a modeling emphasis on fairness aspects. The framework provides a shared vocabulary in which the factors relevant to fairness assessments for different situations and procedures are made explicit, as well as their interrelations. This enables us to compare analogous situations, to highlight the differences in dissimilar situations, and to capture differing interpretations of the same situation by different stakeholders. (shrink)

Medical students newly arrived on the wards encounter frustrating ethical predicaments that are complicated by students' place in the hospital hierarchy. A careful scrutiny of medical social structure and culture may enable medical schools to offer their students a more effective ethics education.

More than 5 billion people in the world own a smartphone. More than half of these have been used to collect and process health-related data. As such, the existing volume of potentially exploitable health data is unprecedentedly large and growing rapidly. Mobile health applications (apps) on smartphones are some of the worst offenders and are increasingly being used for gathering and exchanging significant amounts of personal health data from the public. This data is often utilized for health research purposes and (...) for algorithm training. While there are advantages to utilizing this data for expanding health knowledge, there are associated risks for the users of these apps, such as privacy concerns and the protection of their data. Consequently, gaining a deeper comprehension of how apps collect and crowdsource data is crucial. To explore how apps are crowdsourcing data and to identify potential ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI), we conducted an examination of the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store in North America and Europe to identify apps that could potentially gather health data through crowdsourcing. Subsequently, we analyzed their privacy policies, terms of use, and other related documentation to gain insights into the utilization of users’ data and the possibility of repurposing it for research or algorithm training purposes. More specifically, we reviewed privacy policies to identify clauses pertaining to the following key categories: research, data sharing, privacy/confidentiality, commercialization, and return of findings. Based on the results of these app search, we developed an App Atlas that presents apps which crowdsource data for research or algorithm training. We identified 46 apps available in the European and Canadian markets that either openly crowdsource health data for research or algorithm training or retain the legal or technical capability to do so. This app search showed an overall lack of consistency and transparency in privacy policies that poses challenges to user comprehensibility, trust, and informed consent. A significant proportion of applications presented contradictions or exhibited considerable ambiguity. For instance, the vast majority of privacy policies in the App Atlas contain ambiguous or contradictory language regarding the sharing of users’ data with third parties. This raises a number of ethico-legal concerns which will require further academic and policy attention to ensure a balance between protecting individual interests and maximizing the scientific utility of crowdsourced data. This article represents a key first step in better understanding these concerns and bringing attention to this important issue. (shrink)

This article starts from the observation that practices of ‘algorithmic governmentality’ or ‘governance by data’ are reconfiguring modes of social relationality and collectivity. By building, first, on an empirical exploration of digital bordering practices, we qualify these emergent algorithmic categories as ‘clusters’—pulsing patterns distilled from disaggregated data. As fluid, modular, and ever-emergent forms of association, these ‘clusters’ defy stable expressions of collective representation and social recognition. Second, we observe that this empirical analysis resonates with accounts that diagnosed algorithmic governance as (...) a threat to legal subjectivity and socio-political cohesion, and called for a reinvigoration of democratic values and their re-alignment with new ‘infrastructural publics’. Against this backdrop, however, we explore alternatives avenues of legal imagination by pushing in a different (somewhat opposite) direction. Against the re-inscription of liberal categories, we linger with the promise and prospect of illegibility as resistance against the foreclosure of future potentialities in algorithmic forms of subject-making. Instead of falling back on the projection of autonomous human agency and liberal subjectivity to counteract the ‘cluster’, we imagine emancipatory expressions of resistance that are enacted through fugitive, opaque, and experimental collectivities. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

This volume concerns Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus. It focuses on his interest in cultural history, including discoveries and inventions that transformed the way people live. It also deals with proverbs containing useful truths that were passed down from earlier generations.

Commenting on recently collected sources for Theophrastus' ethical views, this work relates Theophrastean doctrine to that of Aristotle and the rival Stoics. The focus is on topics like virtue and happiness, manners and moral virtues, innate character and the relation of animals to humans.

Theophrastus of Eresus was Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Peripatetic School. He is best known as the author of the amusing Characters and two ground-breaking works in botany, but his writings extend over the entire range of Hellenistic philosophic studies. Volume 5 of Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities focuses on his scientific work. The volume contains new editions of two brief scientific essays-On Fish and Afeteoro/o^y-accompanied by translations and commentary. Among the contributions are: "Peripatetic Dialectic in (...) the De sensibus," Han Baltussen; "Empedocles" Theory of Vision and Theophrastus' De sensibus," David N. Sedley; "Theophrastus on the Intellect," Daniel Devereux; "Theophrastus and Aristotle on Animal Intelligence," Eve Browning Cole; "Physikai doxai and Problemata physika from Aristotle to Agtius," Jap Mansfield; "Xenophanes or Theophrastus? An Aetian Doxographicum on the Sun," David Runia; "Place1 in Context: On Theophrastus, Fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer," Keimpe Algra; "The Meteorology of Theophrastus in Syriac and Arabic Translation," Hans Daiber; "Theophrastus' Meteorology, Aristotle and Posidonius," Ian G. Kidd; "The Authorship and Sources of the Peri Semeion Ascribed to Theophrastus," Patrick Cronin; "Theophrastus, On Fish" Robert W. Sharpies. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the health system worldwide. The organ and tissue donation and transplantation (OTDT) system is no exception and has had to face ethical challenges related to the pandemic, such as risks of infection and resource allocation. In this setting, many Canadian transplant programs halted their activities during the first wave of the pandemic.MethodTo inform future ethical guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic or other public health emergencies of international concern, we conducted a (...) literature review to summarize the ethical issues.ResultsThis literature review identified three categories of ethical challenges. The first one describes the general ethical issues and challenges reported by OTDT organizations and transplantation programs, such as risks of COVID-19 transmission and infection to transplant recipients and healthcare professionals during the transplant process, risk of patient waitlist mortality or further resource strain where transplant procedures have been delayed or halted, and resource allocation. The second category describes ethical challenges related to informed consent in the context of uncertainty and virtual consent. Finally, the third category describes ethical issues related to organ allocation, such as social considerations in selecting transplant candidates.ConclusionThis literature review highlights the salient ethical issues related to OTDT during the current COVID-19 pandemic. As medical and scientific knowledge about COVID-19 increases, the uncertainties related to this disease will decrease and the associated ethical issues will continue to evolve. (shrink)

_Les philosophes face au vice, de Socrate à Augustin_ explore la manière dont les philosophes de l’Antiquité ont tracé une cartographie des vices, analysé leurs causes et leurs effets, et se sont interrogés sur leurs usages. _Les philosophes face au vice, de Socrate à Augustin_ explores how ancient philosophers described the vices, delineated their various kinds, accounted for their causes and effects, and reflected on how to use them.

Extensive research has demonstrated that rs1360780, a common single nucleotide polymorphism within the FKBP5 gene, interacts with early-life stress in predicting psychopathology. Previous results suggest that carriers of the TT genotype of rs1360780 who were exposed to child abuse show differences in structure and functional activation of emotion-processing brain areas belonging to the salience network. Extending these findings on intermediate phenotypes of psychopathology, we examined if the interaction between rs1360780 and child abuse predicts resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the amygdala (...) and other areas of the salience network. We analyzed data of young European adults from the general population (N = 774; mean age = 18.76 years) who took part in the IMAGEN study. In the absence of main effects of genotype and abuse, a significant interaction effect was observed for rsFC between the right centromedial amygdala and right posterior insula (p <.025, FWE-corrected), which was driven by stronger rsFC in TT allele carriers with a history of abuse. Our results suggest that the TT genotype of rs1360780 may render individuals with a history of abuse more vulnerable to functional changes in communication between brain areas processing emotions and bodily sensations, which could underlie or increase the risk for psychopathology. (shrink)

Sabine Fourrier et al. Le dépot archaïque d'Amathonte, III. Les petits objets p. 67-118 Cet article présente les petits objets découverts dans un remblai d'époque archaïque, déposé contre le rempart Nord de la ville basse d'Amathonte. Le matériel, riche et varié, reflète les différentes fonctions du palais, dont il provient. Plusieurs types sont inédits ou seulement attestés parmi les trouvailles du palais de l'acropole. Certaines catégories, comme les figurines de terre cuite ou les marques incisées sur vases, sont particulièrement bien (...) représentées. Malgré leur aspect souvent fragmentaire, ces objets donnent une vue d'ensemble du mobilier que contenait le palais archaïque d'Amathonte. (shrink)

Apparently inconsistent with the CLASH model, animal research relates predictable environments to rigid routine behaviors and aggression. However, our work on evolutionary and neural adaptations to (un)predictable environments may be able to reconcile the CLASH model with the animal research, but also suggests complexities beyond the dichotomous approach of CLASH.

We describe a neural monitor of environmental and physiological resources that informs effort expenditure. Depending on resources and environmental stability, serotonergic and dopaminergic neuromodulations favor different behavioral controls that are organized in corticostriatal loops. This broader perspective produces some suggestions and questions that may not be covered by the foraging approach to vigor of Shadmehr and Ahmed (2020).

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

BackgroundCentral to ethically justified clinical trial design is the need for an informed consent process responsive to how potential subjects actually comprehend study participation, especially study goals, risks, and potential benefits. This will be particularly challenging when studying deep brain stimulation and whether it impedes symptom progression in Parkinson’s disease, since potential subjects will be Parkinson’s patients for whom deep brain stimulation will likely have therapeutic value in the future as their disease progresses.MethodAs part of an expanded informed consent process (...) for a pilot Phase I study of deep brain stimulation in early stage Parkinson’s disease, an ethics questionnaire composed of 13 open-ended questions was distributed to potential subjects. The questionnaire was designed to guide potential subjects in thinking about their potential participation.ResultsWhile the purpose of the study (safety and tolerability) was extensively presented during the informed consent process, in returned responses 70 percent focused on effectiveness and 91 percent included personal benefit as potential benefit from enrolling. However, 91 percent also indicated helping other Parkinson’s patients as motivation when considering whether or not to enroll.ConclusionsThis combination of responses highlights two issues to which investigators need to pay close attention in future trial designs: (1) how, and in what ways, informed consent processes reinforce potential subjects’ preconceived understandings of benefit, and (2) that potential subjects see themselves as part of a community of Parkinson’s sufferers with responsibilities extending beyond self-interest. More importantly, it invites speculation that a different paradigm for informed consent may be needed. (shrink)