"A close analysis of the Republic's diverse literary styles shows how the peculiarities of verbal texture in Platonic discourse can be explained by Plato's remolding of tropes and techniques from poetry and the Presocratics. This book argues that Plato smuggles poetic language into the Republic's prose in order to characterize the deceitful coloration and polymorphy that accompanies the world of Becoming as opposed to the Real. Plato's distinctive discourse thus can transmit, even to those figures focused on the visual within (...) his Republic, the shiftiness of the base and the unjust."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Contrary to the traditional viewpoint which interpreted Plato’s stance towards poetry as derogatory, more recently scholars have rightly argued that Plato’s treatment of painting is too complicated to be dismissed as negative only. Painting is for Plato a well-adapted analogy which allows him to discuss highly intricate philosophical issues, as, for example, the relationship of the forms with our earthly realm of sense-perception. It also provides him with useful vocabulary to conduct his philosophical investigations. In this paper, I focus on (...) Plato’s employment of one particular pictorial technique, that of shadow-painting. I argue that this innovative 5th century technique served Plato as a metaphor for discussing the intricate philosophical issue of opposition and antithesis. In specific terms, Plato associates the technique of skiagraphia with the poets, sophists and the unsophisticated non-philosophical majority. (shrink)

En el presente artículo examino la apropiación platónica del lenguaje poético en República y sostengo que, a pesar de sus críticas a la poesía en los libros 3 y 10, el lenguaje poético está correctamente entrelazado dentro del tejido filosófico para pintar lo corrupto, lo feo y lo inmoral. En términos específicos, la adaptación platónica de diversos motivos poéticos e imágenes en República se vuelve más significativa si prestamos atención a Sócrates como un quasi-pintor en el diálogo e interpretamos sus (...) imágenes filosóficas como una respuesta de la filosofía a las engañosas representaciones dramáticas de la poesía. De este modo, el arte de la pintura que, incluso es criticado en el libro 10 de República, en manos de Platón resulta una herramienta filosófica que le permite investigar la relación de nuestro mundo senso-perceptivo ordinario con el campo metafísico de las Ideas y el lugar de lo humano en él. In this article I examine Plato's appropriation of poetic language in the Republic and argue that, despite his criticism of poetry in Books 3 and 10, poetic language is justifiably weaved into the philosophical fabric to depict the corrupt, the ugly and the base. In specific terms, Plato's adaptation of several poetic motifs and images in the Republic becomes more meaningful if we choose to pay attention to Socrates as a quasi painter in the dialogue and interpret his philosophical images as philosophy's response to the deceptive dramatic representations of poetry. Thus the art of painting, which is also criticised in Republic Book 10, in Plato's hands becomes a philosophical tool which helps him investigate the relation of our mundane sense-perceptive world to the metaphysical realm of the Ideas and humans' place in it. (shrink)

Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases are genetically inherited neurodegenerative disorders. They are caused by mutations that result in polyQ expansions of particular proteins. Mutant proteins form intranuclear aggregates, induce cytotoxicity and cause neuronal cell death. Protein interaction data suggest that polyQ regions modulate interactions between coiled‐coil (CC) domains. In the case of the polyQ disease spinocerebellar ataxia type‐1 (SCA1), interacting proteins with CC domains further enhance aggregation and toxicity of mutant ataxin‐1 (ATXN1). Here, we suggest that CC partners interacting with the polyQ (...) region of a mutant protein, increase its aggregation while partners that interact with a different region reduce the formation of aggregates. Computational analysis of genetic screens revealed that CC‐rich proteins are highly enriched among genes that enhance pathogenicity of polyQ proteins, supporting our hypothesis. We therefore suggest that blocking interactions between mutant polyQ proteins and their CC partners might constitute a promising preventive strategy against neurodegeneration. (shrink)

This collection of essays endeavors to generate a dialogue between Eric Voegelin and other prominent twentieth-century thinkers and explore some of the more perplexing issues in contemporary political theory. Each essay rests on the underlying question: is it possible or desirable to construct or discover political foundations without resorting to metaphysical or essentialist constructs? The introduction focuses on the two nineteenth-century thinkers, Nietzsche and Husserl, who have framed the debate about modernity and postmodernity; thereafter, the book examines Voegelin's ideas as (...) compared to those of other twentieth-century thinkers. Discussed within the volume are Levinas and the precedence of ethics, Ricoeur's theory of narrative representation, Deleuze and the philosophy of immanence, Voegelin's relationship to a speech- dimension theory of human behavior, and Patocka's theory of pre- metaphysical transcendence in Socrates. What will impress scholars most about this collection is the provocative dialogue created between Voegelin and other major thinkers of postmodernism that addresses the issue of establishing foundations without foundationalism. (shrink)

Two questions are examined within a model of vertical differentiation. The first is whether cost-reducing innovations are more likely to be observed in regimes of more intense or less intense competition. Following Delbono and Denicolo (1990) and Bester and Petrakis (1993) we compare two identical industries that differ only in the regime of competition: Bertrand versus Cournot. Since Cournot competition leads to lower output and higher prices, it can be thought of as a regime of less intense competition. We find (...) that the increase in profits associated with any given cost reduction is higher in the case of Cournot competition than in the case of Bertrand competition. Thus there are cost-reducing innovations that would be pursued under Cournot competition but not under Bertrand competition. (shrink)