Das letzte halbe Jahrhundert hat einen unvergleichlichen Siegeszug der Molekularbiologie erlebt, zu dem die Genomik, die molekulare Zell- und Entwicklungsbiologie, die Epigenetik sowie Erkenntnisse der Stammzellbiologie als tragende Säulen beigetragen und die Biowissenschaften insgesamt in die sogenannte postgenomische Ära geführt haben. Anstelle eines verengten Blicks in den Kern der Zelle und seiner DNA hat sich das Visier von Biologen auf eine sich dynamisch verändernde Zellumgebung hin geöffnet. Wechselwirkungen zwischen molekularen, zellulären, organismischen bis hin zu ökologischen Hierarchieebenen, stets aufwärts und abwärts (...) interagierend (bottom-up und top-down), bestimmen das Bild postgenomischer Naturbetrachtung. Dieses erweiterte Gesichtsfeld führte einerseits weg von einem strikten Gen-gesteuerten Determinismus hin zu Systemdenken und zur Systembiologie. Zum anderen rückten auf diesem Weg wieder Lücken in der klassischen neodarwinistischen Lehre in den Fokus, die nach einer erweiterten Synthese der Standardlehre der Evolution rufen. So hat das neue Forschungsfeld Evo-Devo (Akronym für Evolutionary Developmental Biology) erstmals molekulare Mechanismen für die sprunghafte Entstehung von Merkmalen aufgezeigt, die die Grundlage für die Entstehung neuer Baupläne (Makroevolution) bildeten. (shrink)

Die Frage nach der Vererbung von Eigenschaften bei Lebewesen beschäftigt den Menschen seit alters her: das ist Genetik. Auch lange schon beschäftigen sich Biologen mit der Frage, wie sich die vielen Tierarten im Laufe einer langen Stammesgeschichte herausbilden konnten: das ist Evolution. Wie wird Konstantes über Generationen bewahrt und Diverses/Neues eingeführt? Die überragenden Erfolge der Genetik haben uns im Glauben eingelullt, wir hätten diese Prozesse vollständig verstanden. Mit dem Aufkommen der so genannten Epigenetik kommen Grundlagen sowohl der Individual-, wie auch (...) der Stammesentwicklung jedoch wieder ins Schwanken. In diesem Artikel will ich einen kleinen Einblick in das Feld der Epigenetik und ihre gesellschaftliche Relevanz geben. (shrink)

Nach neodarwinistischem Verständnis der Evolution entstehen neue Organismen letztlich durch rein zufällige Mutationsprozesse auf genetischer Ebene. Ihre Überlebenschancen werden dann durch die jeweilig herrschende Umwelt begünstigt oder unterdrückt. Die Evolution ist demnach nur vom reinen Zufall geleitet. Neuere Einsichten aus Entwicklungsbiologie (EvoDevo) und Epigenetik haben unsere Sicht der Evolutionsabläufe jedoch deutlich erweitert. Dabei kommt der Umwelt eine lenkende Rolle zu, der reine Zufall verliert an Bedeutung. Damit lässt sich naturwissenschaftliches Verständnis wieder besser mit herkömmlichen Schöpfungsbildern versöhnen.

Molecular developmental biology has expanded our conceptions of gene actions, underpinning that embryonic development is not only governed by a set of specific genes, but as much by space–time conditions of its developing modules. Typically, formation of cellular spheres, their transformation into planar epithelia, followed by tube formations and laminations are modular steps leading to the development of nervous tissues. Thereby, actions of organising centres, morphogenetic movements, inductive events between epithelia, tissue polarity reversal, widening of epithelia, and all these occurring (...) orderly in space and time, are driving forces of emergent laminar neural tissues, e.g. the vertebrate retina. Analyses of self-organisational formation of retina-like 3D structures from dispersed cells under defined cell culture conditions demonstrate that not only particular genetic networks, but—at least as important—the applied culture conditions define phenotypes of emergent tissues. Such in vitro approaches allow assigning emerging tissue formation to ground-laying genetic networks separately from contributions by conditional constraints. (shrink)

Berge von brennenden Tieren, Bilder vom „Keulen“, Bilder vom geklonten Menschen. Aber auch Euphorisches: nach der Aufklärung des menschlichen Genoms schöpfen Krebs- und AIDS-Kranke, Querschnittsgelähmte und Alzheimer-Patienten neue Hoffnung. Bilder auch von Börsenkursen: vom neuen Markt der Informations- und Biotechnologien hängt unsere ökonomische Zukunft ab. Hinter allem stecken die „Life Sciences“, und oft wird man mit schrägem Blick gefragt, was das für Leute sind, diese Bio- bzw. Lebenswissenschaftler? Die Frage nach den Möglichkeiten und dem wahren Wert des biomedizinischen Fortschritts, nach (...) seiner Kontrolle, nach seiner Verantwortung, nach seiner gesellschaftlichen Bindung wird lauter. (shrink)

Bei der Suche nach dem rätselhaften Ursprung des Phänomens „Leben“ wird hier zunächst die zelluläre Ebene betrachtet. Im Grundaufbau zeigen alle Zellen viel Konstantes, aber gleichzeitig stellt jede Zelle ein einmaliges Individuum dar. Leben von Zellen gibt es nur als gegenseitiges Wechselspiel mit ihrer jeweiligen Umwelt. Das Genom (die Gesamtheit aller Gene) bleibt ab der Befruchtung in jeder Zelle eines Individuums konstant. Aber auch die Verwirklichung der Gene braucht eine „molekulare Umwelt“, besonders die vom Muttertier vorbereitete Umwelt im Zytoplasma des (...) Eies. Individualität eines Organismus (z.B. des Menschen) wird also nicht allein vom Genom festgelegt, sondern ist durch Entwicklungsprozesse bedingt (braucht Zeit!). „Leben“ kann (muß?) somit begriffen werden als ein wechselseitiges Kontinuum, welches alle Individuen, alle Spezies und alle Generationen miteinander und ihren Umwelten verbindet. Wie phylogenetisch betrachtet die allererste Zelle aus abiotischen Umständen entstehen konnte, wird hier nicht behandelt. Das Gesagte legt allerdings nahe, dass es nicht Gene waren, die sich eine belebte Welt erschufen, sondern bestimmte (Um-)Welten „erschufen“ sich Gene, die „lebenstauglich“ waren. (shrink)

Seit der Aufklärung versucht der Mensch, Gott abzuschaffen. Dabei fällt der Zufälligkeit, und damit auch der Ziellosigkeit in der darwinistischen Sicht der Evolution besonderes Gewicht zu. Diese weithin akzeptierten Dogmen stehen diametral gegen jahrtausendealte Vorstellungen, die letztlich in allen Kulturen und Religionen hervorgebracht wurden, daß die Natur eine Schöpfung Gottes sei, in der der Mensch das höchste, Gott-ebenbildliche Wesen sei. Nach Erkenntnissen der klassischen Genetik schienen Gene an die Stelle von Gott getreten zu sein: sie haben absolute Gewalt und beherrschen (...) die belebte Natur. Sie haben je einen eindeutigen Befehl, sind unbeugsam und gerecht, wie Gott im AT. Das Produkt Mensch ist nur einer ihrer zahllosen Spielbälle, existiert vorübergehend, ein Zigeuner in einer verlassenen Ecke des Kosmos (Monod, 1992). Diese neodarwinistische Sicht, die nicht zuletzt zum Niedergang der Kirchen bei uns beiträgt, wird von neuen Erkenntnissen der Entwicklungsbiologie (EvoDevo) infrage gestellt. (shrink)

Anlaß zum vorliegenden Artikel gab eine Tagung zum Thema „Gott-Geist-Gehirn“, bei der im Dialog zwischen Theologen und Neurowissenschaftlern Beziehungen zwischen diesen drei Begriffen diskutiert wurden. Aus biologischer Sicht sind es vor allem Hirnleistungen, welche uns spezifisch zum Menschen machen. Die Entstehung der Hirnstrukturen während der Embryonal- und Postnatalperiode wird im ersten Teil behandelt, deren Verständnis essentiell ist. Im zweiten Teil werden physiologische Fähigkeiten des menschlichen Gehirns am Beispiel des visuellen Systems in sehr verkürzter Weise dargestellt, um zu untersuchen, inwieweit physiologische (...) Erkenntnisse das Phänomen der Wahrnehmung bis hin zur Entstehung von Bewusstsein erklären können. Weil sich hier Verständnislücken auftun, die nach meinem Dafürhalten grundsätzlich und unlösbar sind (Qualia-Problem), komme ich schließlich zur Unvollständigkeit jeglicher naturwissenschaftlichen Weltsicht (unendliche Regresse) und die damit notwendige Annahme einer „Ur-Ursache“ dieser Welt, wie sie schon von Aristoteles im kosmologischen Gottesbeweis formuliert wurde. So führt diese Betrachtung zum Schluß, dass insbesondere Naturwissenschaftler einer Ur-Ursache bedürften (Gottesbedürftigkeit). (shrink)

Physiologie und Struktur komplexer Gehirne lassen sich durch Betrachtung evolutions- und entwicklungsbiologischer Abläufe analysieren, was der Hirnforschung tiefe Einblicke bis zur molekularen Ebene erlaubt. In knappster Form werden grundlegende Aspekte der Stammes- und Individualentwicklung (Phylo- und Ontogenese) von Gehirnen im Tierreich beschrieben, bis hin zum menschlichen Gehirn, dessen Grobgliederung skizziert wird. Das Lernvermögen insbesondere von Kleinkindern ist aufgrund postnataler Hirnplastizität erklärbar. Systematische Unterschiede zwischen einzelnen Zellen und Neuronenverbänden sind für selbstorganisierende Bewußtseinsprozesse bedeutsam. Am Beispiel der stufenweisen visuellen Signalverarbeitung wird die (...) mögliche Wahrnehmung von Bildern diskutiert, um danach gängige Theorien zur Bewußtseinsfrage einander gegenüber zu stellen. Schließlich wird auf das Qualia-Problem eingegangen, was vom Autor als Unerklärbarkeit des Bewußtseinsinhalts und als Urfrage des Leib-Seele-Problems verstanden wird. Sie kann wohl auch durch modernste biologische Forschung nicht beantwortet werden. (shrink)

Darwin´s Erkenntnis über die Abstammung der Arten durch Mutation und Selektion sind in aller Munde, dass aber darüber im Detail noch viel Unklarheit herrscht, ist weniger bekannt. Es sind Fortschritte der Entwicklungsbiologie, die erst seit wenigen Jahren uns molekulare Erklärungsmuster an die Hand geben, mit denen die Entstehung neuer Arten besser verständlich wird. Es handelt sich um die Aufklärung der Wirkungsweise von Genen und ihren molekularen Produkten, die während der embryonalen Entwicklung von Tier und Mensch dafür sorgen, daß der Organismus (...) sich normal entwickelt. Treten Veränderungen (Mutationen) in einem dieser Mastergene auf, so wird dies zur Missbildung oder gar zum Absterben des betreffenden Embryos führen. Aber in seltenen Fällen kann so auch eine neue Tierart begründet werden. Gerade im Darwin-Jahr werden die Lehrbücher zur Evolutionsbiologie um ein wesentliches Kapitel erweitert. Es ist mit EvoDevo überschrieben und will damit ausdrücken, daß Evolutionary Theory ohne Developmental Biology keinen Sinn macht. Die bisherigen Lücken im Verständnis des Evolutionsgeschehens und die neue Sicht von EvoDevo wird im Folgenden dargestellt werden. (shrink)

Never was dogmatic reductionism helpful in conceiving the phenomenon of life. The post-genomic era has made it clear that genes alone cannot explain the functioning of whole organisms. Already each cell represents a unique, non-recurring individual. Recent progress in developmental biology has conveyed new perspectives both on the makings of individual organisms (ontogeny), as on evolutionary change (Evo-Devo). The genome (the entirety of all genes) of an animal remains constant from fertilization onwards in each cell. The realization of genes requires (...) molecular environments, in particular pertinent to the cytoplasm of the unfertilized egg. Individuality of an organism therefore is not only determined by its genome, but is shaped through developmental processes (it needs time!). Organisms can only exist through mutual interplays with their respective (molecular and cellular) environments at all levels of organization. Thus, life can be conceived of as endless networks of communication, e.g. as a mutual continuum, connecting all individuals, all species and all generations within their given environments. Evolutionarily, nature does not select fitting genes, but rather viable traits. The presented concepts render it unlikely that it was genes that founded our living world, but rather that distinct environments shaped “genes” (of whatever chemical nature) which proved to be “life-suitable”. (shrink)

Der erste Teil dieses Aufsatzes befasst sich mit der Tatsache, dass neben der Stammesgeschichte des Menschen (Phylogenese) und seiner je individuellen genetischen Ausstattung für seine Persönlichkeitsentwicklung besonders wichtig ist, dass sein Gehirn bei der Geburt noch unausgereift ist. In dieser Phase kommen Umwelteinflüsse (Lernen jeglicher Art) besonders stark zum Tragen, so daß die „Freiheit des Menschen“ hier wesentlich begründet wird. Soviel uns das Studium der Frühentwicklung des Gehirns (Ontogenese) über seine Organisation und seine Funktionen hat verstehen lassen, bleibt doch fraglich, (...) inwieweit die Hirnforschung uns in Fragen nach den seelisch-geistigen Fähigkeiten des Menschen, oder gar nach Gott und Gottesbildern weiterbringen kann. Im 2. Teil wird daher am Beispiel der Hirnfunktionen und der Frage nach dem Bewusstsein erläutert, warum menschliche Erkenntnisfähigkeit begrenzt ist. Die Naturwissenschaft behandelt Wenn-Dann-Fragen und liefert Gründe für das Dann. Sie kann jedoch weder Wesensfragen klären, noch den letzten Urgrund alles Seienden festmachen. Weil aber alles einen Grund haben muß, kann es ein absolutes Nichts niemals gegeben haben, oder geben. Daraus folgend wird im 3. Teil erläutert, dass es gerade rational Sinn macht, als Urgrund der Welt eine letzte Allmacht, also Gott zu denken. Religion kann demnach als höchste, weil freiheitlichste und damit menschlichste Leistung unseres Hirns verstanden werden. Die Evolution hat mit dem menschlichen Gehirn nicht nur die Stufe der Selbst-, sondern auch der Gottesreflexion erreicht. Dies könnte biologisch mit dem theologischen Begriff der Gottesebenbildlichkeit gemeint sein. (shrink)

Nicht Stabilität, sondern Instabilität sei der Grundcharakter der Natur, so hören wir von Jan Schmidt als Auftakt zu seinem Buch „Das Andere der Natur“ (Hirzel-Verlag, 2015). „Das Eine der Natur“, welches reduktionistisch zu erfassen ist, soll durch ein „Anderes“ ergänzt werden. Von dieser anderen Seite her zeigt sich „Natur ... auch (als) instabil, komplex, chaotisch, zufällig, emergent...“, und aus dieser Sicht des Naturgeschehens heraus will der Autor eine Philosophie der Instabilität entwerfen. Der gelernte Physiker und Philosoph lehrt an der Hochschule (...) Darmstadt (hda) Wissenschafts- und Technikphilosophie. Sein Buch beleuchtet das Thema „Instabilitäten“ aus vielen Blickwinkeln. Was sind Instabilitäten, was Selbstorganisation, was ist Zeit, was Zufall, was Kausalität? Diese Erkenntnisse bezieht der Autor dann auf den Kosmos, auf die Evolution bis hin zum menschlichen Gehirn und seinen Leistungen. Mit dieser Rezension gehe ich ausführlich auf dieses lesenswerte Buch ein. (shrink)

The role of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in neurotransmission is well known. But long before synapses are formed in vertebrates, AChE is expressed in young postmitotic neuroblasts that are about to extend the first long tracts. AChE histochemistry can thus be used to map primary steps of brain differentiation. Preceding an possibly inducing AChE in avian brains, the closely related butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) spatially fore-shadows AChE-positive cell areas and the course of their axons. In particular, before spinal motor axons grow, their corresponding rostral (...) sclerotomes and myotomes express BChE, and both their neuronal source and myotomal target cells express AChE. Since axon growth has been found inhibited by acetylcholine, it is postulated that both cholinetsreases can attract neurite growth cones by neutralizing the inhibitor. Thus, the early expression of both cholinesterases that is at least partially independent from classical cholinergic synaptogenesis, sheds new light on the developmental and medical significance of these enzymes. (shrink)

Der Kugel als Grundbauform des Lebens begegnen wir im gesamten Organismenreich, angefangen von sphärischen einzelligen Lebewesen wie der Namibperle (Thiomargaritha namibiensis), einem großen marinen Bakterium, über kugelige, vielzellige Algen wie der Süßwasseralge Volvox, marinen Rippenquallen wie der Seestachelbeere (Pleurobrachia) und den frühen Entwicklungsstadien tierischer Vielzeller (Metazoa). Alle diese kugeligen Gestalten finden wir fast ausschließlich in wässrigem Milieu. An Land sind die Pflanzen hingegen generell langgestreckt. Tiere haben spätestens beim Auszug aus einer aquatischen Umgebung die Kugelform aufgegeben. Diese Beobachtung führt zur (...) Frage nach den grundlegenden Prinzipien der Bauplanevolution im Zusammenhang mit dem Landgang der Tiere und Pflanzen. Beim Landgang konnte auf bereits im aquatischen Milieu entwickelte Grundformen zurückgriffen werden. Bei den Pflanzen waren es die von Algen bekannten Zellfäden, aus denen die bipolare Langform hervorging. Mit dem einen Ende dem mineralischen Untergrund verhaftet und mit dem anderen in die Atmosphäre reichend, schufen sie die Grundlagen für terrestrische Tiere. Der Schritt ans Land vollzog sich bei Tieren mehrfach und ging von einer größeren Zahl von Bauplänen aus. Wie die evolutionäre Entwicklungsbiologie (EvoDevo) nahelegt, gingen diese auf kleine Abwandlungen in der Embryonalentwicklung zurück, die in kurzen Zeiträumen große Entwicklungsschritte (Makrosprünge) möglich machen. Entsprechend rasch konnten sich die Tiere auch an terrestrische Bedingungen anpassen. (shrink)

I. Language is a witness of change in the field of the knowledge. In its system of signs, also the “traces” that show “the movement of the signs” are conserved, meaning those dynamic signs that indicate problems and solutions of problems, and sometimes even the invention of new problems, which modify the paradigms of knowledge. In the case of the creativity problem, if we take language as the witness, we see the following: 1. In the first half of the 20 (...) th century, the term used to denote the innovatory phenomena is that of creation. This notion refers, most often, to the artistic works, but is step by step extended also to denote the great scientific discoveries or technical inventions and, more seldom, other types of activities which bear the mark of novelty or originality, generally with an “out of the ordinary character” . The word has an obvious value content and exactly by its evaluative significance, it is disseminated in the current cultural vocabulary. It can have more general meanings, due to the fact that it keeps, in its semantic memory, the archaic layers of the myths of creation, but also because it can be resignified metaphysically, as a cosmogony principle or one of the evolution of life . But its established place in the philosophical discourse is found mostly in the area of the philosophy of culture or in that of the philosophy of value and especially in the philosophy of art. From here, it is overtaken by the art sciences, as the psychology of art, the history of art or the sociology of art. The term creation means both the works, the products of the creation process, and the processes through which these works are accomplished. In the analysis of the creation process, the significance of the term become more psychological, and the rationalization to which it is subjected to seems to furthen it both from its religious origin as well as from the Romantic mythology of the genius. However, if we regard more attentively, we see that terms as “inspiration”, “incubation” or “invention”, from the so called explanations of the creation process, preserve the magic obscurity of the enigma. Generally, the idea of creation, even totally transferred to the human sphere, secularized, rationalized and psychologized, still keeps something from the history of a notion charged with “mystery”, “heroic admiration” and a sort of “sacred terror”, which can be understood by considering the religious origin of the idea of creation; because about creation, in the human sphere, it has been commenced to be talked at first by analogy to the divine creation, in the discourse about art of the Renaissance, and the semantic evolution of the notion has not, for a long time, furthen itself from it spiritual root. Creation – even when it denotes the human products- still remains a metaphor- which transports to something difficult to comprehend, rather than facilitates the understanding of what it denotes. 2. After the middle of the 20 th century, a new term, creativity, makes its way in the discourse, replacing the word creation. It comes from the vocabulary of the humanistic sciences, firstly from psychology and afterward by the other sciences which adopted it. It becomes, in a short period, a frequent term of the cultural world and of public communication. The discourse in which this neologism appears has completely changed suppositions: a). Firstly, it is a discourse of scientific nature ; b). Secondly, its notions are descriptive: creativity denotes the capacity to produce innovative works in any domain and is seen as a generally human dimension ; the creative products are described following criteria such as novelty, originality, relevance, adequacy or utility, attributes that are intelligible but also rationally computable. c). Thirdly, the suppositions of the discourse on creativity contains the idea that the creative phenomena can be understood rationally, described, analyzed, explained and measured, and their knowledge can be applied in the so called techniques to stimulate creativity or transferred in the methods of learning and education. The notion of creativity indicates thus a discourse articulated on a type of representations which we could call positive, to mark this way the change in knowledge on which they are based. 3. In the last decades of the 20 th century, in the vocabulary of the sciences on creativity appears a new notion: creatology . According to the significance that results from the terms which compose this linguistic invention, creatology can denote, in a general sense, the study or the theory of creation or creativity, accomplished in a discipline or other from the sciences which assumed it as a research problem. Still, the discussions on creatology have requested more - the constituting of an autonomous discipline of creativity. These three notions – creation, creativity and creatology - have an obvious “family resemblance”, although, as we have seen, the semantic differences are significant. Through these notions we can reconstruct not only the history of a problem which appeared as important to the knowledge of the 20 th century, but perhaps even the history of some ideas which have accompanied the understanding of the cultural history or, wider, the history of the mentalities of the 20 th century. It is exactly why the emergence of creatology can be researched from the perspective of cultural analysis. (shrink)

Non-reductive Physicalism together with environment-dependence of content has been thought to be incompatible with the claim that beliefs are efficacious partly in virtue of their possession of content, that is, in virtue of their intentional properties. I argue that this is not so. First, I provide a general account of property causation. Then, I explain how, even given the truth of Non-reductive Physicalism and the environment-dependence of content, intentional properties will be efficacious according to this account. I go on to (...) relate my discussion to that concerning whether Anomalous Monism is committed to epiphenomenalism. I close by considering how my proposal suggests we should conceive of different levels of causation in a layered world. (shrink)

What is the relation between coherence and truth? This paper rejects numerous answers to this question, including the following: truth is coherence; coherence is irrelevant to truth; coherence always leads to truth; coherence leads to probability, which leads to truth. I will argue that coherence of the right kind leads to at least approximate truth. The right kind is explanatory coherence, where explanation consists in describing mechanisms. We can judge that a scientific theory is progressively approximating the truth if it (...) is increasing its explanatory coherence in two key respects: broadening by explaining more phenomena and deepening by investigating layers of mechanisms. I sketch an explanation of why deepening is a good epistemic strategy and discuss the prospect of deepening knowledge in the social sciences and everyday life. (shrink)

In 1998 a long-lost proposal for an election law by Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) was rediscovered in the _Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek_ in Jena, Germany. The method that Frege proposed for the election of representatives of a constituency features a remarkable concern for the representation of minorities. Its core idea is that votes cast for unelected candidates are carried over to the next election, while elected candidates incur a cost of winning. We prove that this sensitivity to past elections guarantees (...) a proportional representation of political opinions in the long run. We find that through a slight modification of Frege’s original method even stronger proportionality guarantees can be achieved. This modified version of Frege’s method also provides a novel solution to the apportionment problem, which is distinct from all of the best-known apportionment methods, while still possessing noteworthy proportionality properties. (shrink)

An emerging consensus in cognitive science views the biological brain as a hierarchically-organized predictive processing system that relies on generative models to predict the structure of sensory information. Such a view resonates with a body of work in machine learning that has explored the problem-solving capabilities of hierarchically-organized, multi-layer neural networks, many of which acquire and deploy generative models of their training data. The present chapter explores the extent to which the ostensible convergence on a common neurocomputational architecture might (...) provide inroads into the problem of digital immortality. In contrast to approaches that seek to recapitulate the physical structure of the human brain, the present chapter advocates an approach that is rooted in the use of machine learning algorithms. The claim is that a future form of deep learning system could be used to acquire generative models of a given individual or the sensory data that is processed by the brain of a given individual during the course of their biological life. The differences between these two forms of digital immortality are explored, as are some of the options for digital resurrection. (shrink)

This paper aims to address the manner in which the protester’s opposition, or what I consider as the protester’s being-there-against, “profiles” itself in the no-man’s-land between non-violence and violence. My focus is therefore to unfold some of its constitutive layers, relying on the conceptual tools prominently provided by Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology. The first constitutive layer concerns the protester’s bodily presence, seized first of all as a specific “here” and “there,” and then as an expressive body that is communicating through (...) gestures. Within the interpretation of one of these gestures—the fist raised in the air—I highlight the anamnestic nature of the protester’s being-there-against as it appears in the relationship with a state whose legitimacy comes from taking over the monopoly on violence. The second constitutive layer is related to the linguistic dimension of the protester’s presence: here special attention is paid to the way language and violence connect, having as background an analysis devoted to the surplus and the deficit of meaning attached to the slogans chanted by the protesters. (shrink)

Early Vedic possesses a chameleon-like verb form called the injunctive, whose uses partly overlap with, and alternate with, those of the subjunctive, optative and imperative moods, and with the past and present tenses. Being morphologically tenseless and moodless, the injunctive has attracted interest from a comparative Indo-European perspective because it appears to be an archaic layer of the finite verb morphology. Its place and function in the verb system, however, remains disputed. In Kiparsky 1968 I argued that it is (...) tenseless and moodless not only morphologically but also functionally, and that injunctive forms acquire modal and temporal interpretations only contextually. The injunctive’s only intrinsic grammatical features are aspect, voice and person/number. This paper provides new evidence for that view (section 1), and goes on to argue that such underspecified forms in paradigms support morpheme-based theories of morphology over realizational theories such as Paradigm Function Morphology (section 2), and that the rise and loss of the injunctive is connected to other changes in the pre- and post-Vedic aspect, tense, and mood system (section 3). (shrink)

Our best philosophical and scientific pictures of the world organize material objects into a hierarchy or levels or layers- microparticles at the bottom, molecules, cells, and persons at higher layers. Are objects at higher layers identical to the sums of objects at lower layers that constitute them? (Note that this question is different from the question of whether composition- as opposed to constitution- is identity.).

An emerging consensus in cognitive science views the biological brain as a hierarchically-organized predictive processing system that relies on generative models to predict the structure of sensory information. Such a view resonates with a body of work in machine learning that has explored the problem-solving capabilities of hierarchically-organized, multi-layer (i.e., deep) neural networks, many of which acquire and deploy generative models of their training data. The present chapter explores the extent to which the ostensible convergence on a common neurocomputational (...) architecture (centred on predictive processing schemes, hierarchical organization, and generative models) might provide inroads into the problem of digital immortality. In contrast to approaches that seek to recapitulate the connectomic microstructure of the human brain, the present chapter advocates an approach that is rooted in the use of machine learning algorithms. The claim is that a future form of deep learning system could be used to acquire generative models of a given individual or (alternatively) the sensory data that is processed by the brain of a given individual during the course of their biological life. The differences between these two forms of digital immortality are explored, as are some of the options for digital resurrection. (shrink)

Through emotionally charged portraits and richly layered interior views, the photographs of Chicago-based artist Paul D Amato provide a genuine and complex perspective on life in some of the most challenging and troubled neighborhoods in the nation. This publication is supported in part by grants from the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.".

I adapt Robert Sinnerbrink's notion of cinematic poesis by arguing that Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line constitutes an example of ecological cinematic poesis: a style of filmmaking that works in concert with the limits and potentialities of the filmmaking as a medium. This cinematic bearing emerges in a new way following Malick's return to Hollywood, where a combination of factors spur the emergence of a radical Emersonian practice of cinematic receptivity. I draw on oral histories, and the film itself, (...) to demonstrate how Malick's creative process consistently tends towards an ethos of poverty. To further pattern and illuminate the ecological stakes of this Emersonian stance, I draw on the complementary framework of second-order systems theory, and in particular, on Niklas Luhmann's concept of simultaneity. In so doing, I outline the layered nature of Malick's cinematic praxis – a doubled Emersonian receptivity which not only invites defamiliarizing depictions of warfare and the nonhuman, but also welcomes, and toys with, the otherness haunting technical images and human cognition. As such, The Thin Red Line, and its immediate counterparts, perform the ecological work of reframing the conditions of wonder, asking us to marvel not at what we have seen, but what we haven’t. (shrink)

A focus on the lawmaking process, I submit, permits us to explore a particular dimension of justice, namely the relationship between law and liberty. Laws that reflect the arbitrary whims of the lawmaker are presumptively unjust, because they constrain liberty for no good reason. A strategy for making arbitrary laws less likely involves recognizing checks on the lawmaker's powers and grounding those checks in processes that allow the governed to express their disapproval. The system of checks and balances employed in (...) the U.S. Constitution embodies this strategy, although reasonable people can debate its efficacy. As A.O. Hirschman observed, regimes that permit free movement of persons and property similarly restrict the force of arbitrary rules by allowing exit from unwanted restrictions. I want to inquire into the role of checks in international lawmaking. At first blush, it might appear that the fundamental principle of state consent provides all the checking that international lawmaking needs. This principle maintains that a state (and by extension, its subjects) can be bound by a rule of international law only if that state manifests its consent to the rule. As long as states have a real choice, itself subject to internal checks on official decisionmaking, the adoption of the rule should meet basic criteria of procedural justice. Indeed, the correlate of this principle—that each state has a veto over the adoption of international law, at least as applied to itself and its subjects—suggests that international lawmaking poses less of a threat to liberty than do conventional municipal lawmaking processes based on majority rule. One might think that, as a result of this principle, no rule will attain the status of international law unless its adoption makes some states better off and no state worse off. This first impression, however, is wrong. First, international lawyers argue for the existence of jus cogens norms that apply regardless of state consent. Second, the concept of state consent is artful, and opportunistic decisionmakers have some freedom to construe consent in ways that circumvent conventional checking processes. Third, political and economic coercion can reduce state consent to a meaningless formality. I discuss each of these points in turn. Once state consent ceases to constrain international lawmaking, the question role of alternative checks to protect liberty looms. Under what circumstances does the international lawmaking process as currently constituted present a threat of arbitrary force? What kinds of resistance to the results of international lawmaking can process values justify? I address these questions in three steps. First, I explore whether international law does carry a threat of coercion. If not, concerns about arbitrary restrictions of liberty are misplaced. Second, I discuss the problems arising from delegations of lawmaking authority to international institutions, with specific reference to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. Third, I discuss the process-value issues associated with judicial lawmaking. None of these concerns justifies blanket opposition to international lawmaking. Rather, those interested in making and enforcing international rules need to grapple with these issues and provide another layer of justification for their efforts. a Footnotesa I am indebted to Ken Abbott, Jean Cohen, Larry Helfer, Robert Hockett, Sean Murphy, Phil Nichols, Ed Swaine, Joel Trachtman, the other contributors to this volume, and participants in a workshop at the University of Virginia School of Law for comments and criticism. Shortcomings are mine alone. (shrink)

In addition to the tremendous fires that will burn for weeks in cities and industrial centers, fires will also rage across croplands and it is likely that at least 1.5 billion tons of stored fossil fuels will be destroyed. The fires will produce a thick smoke layer that will drastically reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface. This darkness would persist for many weeks, rendering any agricultural activity in the Northern Hemisphere virtually impossible if the war takes (...) place during the growing season. The immediate effects of a global nuclear wo. (shrink)

English - language Wikipedia is constantly being plagued by vandalistic contributions on a massive scale. In order to fight them its volunteer contributors deploy an array of software tools and autonomous bots. After an analysis of their functioning and the ‘ coactivity ’ in use between humans and bots, this research ‘ discloses ’ the moral issues that emerge from the combined patrolling by humans and bots. Administrators provide the stronger tools only to trusted users, thereby creating a new hierarchical (...) layer. Further, surveillance exhibits several troubling features : questionable profiling practices, the use of the controversial measure of reputation, ‘ oversurveillance ’ where quantity trumps quality, and a prospective loss of the required moral skills whenever bots take over from humans. The most troubling aspect, though, is that Wikipedia has become a Janus - faced institution. One face is the basic platform of MediaWiki software, transparent to all. Its other face is the anti - vandalism system, which, in contrast, is opaque to the average user, in particular as a result of the algorithms and neural networks in use. Finally it is argued that this secrecy impedes a much needed discussion to unfold ; a discussion that should focus on a ‘ rebalancing ’ of the anti - vandalism system and the development of more ethical information practices towards contributors. (shrink)

Earthquake and Volcano Deformation is the first textbook to present the mechanical models of earthquake and volcanic processes, emphasizing earth-surface deformations that can be compared with observations from Global Positioning System receivers, Interferometric Radar, and borehole strain- and tiltmeters. Paul Segall provides the physical and mathematical fundamentals for the models used to interpret deformation measurements near active faults and volcanic centers. Segall highlights analytical methods of continuum mechanics applied to problems of active crustal deformation. Topics include elastic dislocation theory (...) in homogeneous and layered half-spaces, crack models of faults and planar intrusions, elastic fields due to pressurized spherical and ellipsoidal magma chambers, time-dependent deformation resulting from faulting in an elastic layer overlying a viscoelastic half-space and related earthquake cycle models, poroelastic effects due to faulting and magma chamber inflation in a fluid-saturated crust, and the effects of gravity on deformation. He also explains changes in the gravitational field due to faulting and magmatic intrusion, effects of irregular surface topography and earth curvature, and modern concepts in rate- and state-dependent fault friction. This textbook presents sample calculations and compares model predictions against field data from seismic and volcanic settings from around the world. Earthquake and Volcano Deformation requires working knowledge of stress and strain, and advanced calculus. It is appropriate for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in geophysics, geology, and engineering. Professors: A supplementary Instructor's Manual is available for this book. It is restricted to teachers using the text in courses. For information on how to obtain a copy, refer to: https://press.princeton.edu/class_use/solutions.html. (shrink)

Social epistemology should be truth-centred, argues Goldman. Social epistemology should capture the ‘logic of everyday practices’ and describe socially ‘situated’ reasoning, says Fuller. Starting from Goldman’s vision of epistemology, this paper aims to argue for Fuller’s contention. Social epistemology cannot focus solely on the truth because the truth can be got in lucky ways. The same too could be said for reliability. Adding a second layer of epistemic evaluation helps only insofar as the reasons thus specified are appropriately connected (...) to reliability. These claims are first made in abstract, and then developed with regard to our practice of trusting testimony, where an epistemological investigation into the grounds of reliability must inevitably detail the ‘logic of everyday practices’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Breathing with Mountains1Paul A. Harris (bio)For Sydney Levy, who brought me on board.Geologic AspirationsStone breathes within nature's time cycle…. It begins before you and continues through you and goes on. Working with stone is not resisting time but touching it.—Isamu NoguchiUnder the suffocating circumstances of lockdown, COVID conditions inevitably wafted their way into the stoned thinking of Pierre Jardin.2 The pandemic atmosphere made air apparent, and breathing became personal, (...) political, and planetary. People sought perspective in sometimes surprising ways. While many turned to the Stoics, Jardin turned to stone. Suspending his disbelief in "The Hammock of Relaxation" (fig. 1), Jardin stretched his imagination, and set himself adrift in diffuse reveries of rocky respiration. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.The Hammock of Relaxation. Pebble on book cover.Photo by author.Jardin composes a life centered in absorbing stone(s), encompassing both a physical process of soaking in a substance slowly and psychological experience of becoming engrossed in it. He feels alive with stone and stone alive in him; literally and metaphorically, he has spent hours looking at stone, listening to stone, and touching/being touched by stone. But he had never seriously considered breathing stone. Immediately, a slew of questions arose: Do rocks breathe? Do mountains? Does the Earth? What would it mean to breathe with a stone, or with the planet? Jardin's pursuit of lithic and lithospheric respirations came to comprise his geologic aspirations, which are set out here. [End Page 261]Aerial ImaginationPierre Jardin's geologic aspirations took inspiration from Gaston Bachelard's aerial imagination, as described in Air and Dreams. Accepting Bachelard's invitation to "listen to nothing but our own breathing…, to become as aerial as our breath…" (Bachelard, Air 241), Jardin set about inventing a regimen of contemplative breathing exercises. To do so, he took up what Bachelard terms the "search for a thought hidden under expressive sedimen,ts, [in which] a geology of silence is developed" (Bachelard Air, 251). The question was, what "expressive sediments" should Jardin mine in this quixotic quest? What materials and mental modalities would precipitate a "geology of silence"?In order to meld minds with Bachelard, Jardin placed a pebble on Robert Lapoujade's pencil portrait that graces the book's cover (fig. 2). The results were alchemical: the cobble transmuted into a philosopher's stone, opening Bachelard's third eye; the rock launched a basalt on Jardin's senses that produced an "intoxication of aerial imagination raised to its cosmic role" (Bachelard, Air 241). A gesture as simple as placing a rock on a book crystallized new quartz-veins of thought. What follows are Jardin's experiments with a variety of "expressive sediments," a series of multi-scalar meditations and various instantiations of lithic respiration. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Aerial Basalt on the Senses. Pebble on book cover.Photo by author.Atmospheric CompositionsPierre Jardin's geologic aspirations began with a Composition of Place, a meditative technique deployed in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Loyola stipulates that "for contemplation or meditation about visible things… the 'composition' will consist in seeing through the gaze of the imagination the material place where the object I want to contemplate is situated" (Ganss 47). Taking "Breathing with Mountains" as the "object" of contemplation stretches Jardin's imagination to a geologic scale; its "material place" is the Earth's atmosphere, or more specifically, its lowest layer, the troposphere. [End Page 262]To facilitate his meditation, Jardin scales Earth down to a stunning serpentine stone, which he has mounted like a globe. Holding the stone and breathing slowly, Jardin can visualize the troposphere as the thinnest of films on the rock's surface. In his active imagination, the bumps, furrows, and ridges in the rough rock texture evoke the constant crumpling of the lithosphere caused by drifting and crashing tectonic plates.With the stone standing in for Earth, Jardin suddenly becomes a geologic giant representing Anthropocene humanity. As his exhalations cloud the stone, Jardin considers how Anthropogenic expirations are changing the composition of the Earth's atmosphere. An index of human impact is provided... (shrink)

Deep appreciation of the relevance of emotion to epistemology requires a rich account of how emotional mental states such as happiness, sadness and desire interact with cognitive states such as belief and doubt. Analytic philosophy since Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell has assumed that such mental states are propositional attitudes, which are relations between a self and a proposition, an abstract entity constituting the meaning of a sentence. This chapter shows the explanatory defects of the doctrine of propositional attitudes, (...) and proposes instead that beliefs, desires, and emotions should be construed naturalistically using current understanding of brain mechanisms. Mental states are patterns of neural activity, not relations between dubious entities such as selves and propositions. From this perspective, it becomes easy to see how cognition and emotion are intertwined, and hence how emotions can be integral to epistemology. I begin by reviewing some of the ways in which emotions are relevant to epistemology: as frequent contributors to the growth of knowledge, as sometime impediments to knowledge acquisition, and as components of knowledge about persons and morality. I then argue that propositional attitudes do not exist, because the selves and the propositions that they purportedly relate do not exist. Thus the doctrine of propositional attitudes is as useless for epistemology as it is for explaining human action. I argue for an alternative construal of mental states as patterns of neural activity, and July 23, 2007 describe how it is possible to give a theoretically rich and empirically supported account of the neurophysiological interconnections of cognition and emotion. Finally, I discuss the epistemological significance of this naturalistic, materialist reconstrual of cognitions and emotions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 131-136 [Access article in PDF] Language, Logic, and Recovery:A Commentary on van Staden Paul Falzer and Larry Davidson Keywords: analytic philosophy, experience, Frege, ordinary language, psychosis, psychotherapy. VAN STADEN'S PAPER, "Linguistic Markers of Recovery," takes on a formidable task. As he explains it, findings from a previously conducted empirical study suggest that recovery from a psychiatric condition can be predicted by certain (...) patterns of first person pronoun usage. His current paper explains how these patterns follow the mathematical logic of Gottlob Frege. van Staden's attempt to systematize the link between language and treatment outcome shows promise. We want to support his effort by raising a few caveats about the application of foundational systems in psychiatry and psychology, particularly the advisability of employing a logical system to explain recovery from mental illness. Along the way, we will be identifying related issues that the author may elect to take up in his future work.van Staden's proposal is inspired by Frege's logical system, but the paper is, at the very least, an innovative adaptation. There are various points where we are left to wonder just how much of this proposal is really Frege's. Nevertheless, the genesis of van Staden's ideas is so dependent that one would expect a fuller account of Frege's pivotal role in the development of modern logic, how his work precipitated what is known commonly as the linguistic turn, and why a logical system that was so well received when first articulated was eclipsed so quickly by Russell's Principia (1963) and Wittgenstein's Tractatus. (1981) These issues can be addressed separately and perhaps they should, because lacking an account of how Frege's philosophy developed and evolved makes the presentation appear somewhat sketchy and incomplete.Frege is portrayed in philosophical lore as the founder of modern logic and a pioneer of the movement that later became known as analytic philosophy. Dummett (1991) regards Frege's Foundations of Arithmetic (1968) as analytical philosophy's first work (p. 111). According to Quine (1955), "All modern logic owes an incalculable debt to Frege. If anyone can be singled out as the founder of mathematical logic, it is by all odds he" (p. 158). Rorty (1967) notes that analytic philosophy's tack of construing philosophical questions as turning on language use and construction challenges the entire tradition, from Parmenides forward. However, the challenge reaches fruition not in Frege, but in works of Moore, Wittgenstein, and Austin. Rather than [End Page 131] sharing the limelight with the great analytic philosophers, Frege has become somewhat of a peripheral figure, whose contribution is usually portrayed as transitional. In some respects, analytic philosophy was moving against Frege's, and later, Russell's logical systems as it was concomitantly countering the various strands of idealism expounded principally by Bradley and McTaggart (see Hacker 1996, 5-12). Almost from the outset, Fregean logic was caught in a cross fire, and the author is obligated to tell us why we should be attending to the pristine version and not the more fully developed approaches that came soon after.Such a justification undoubtedly would begin with the dictum most central to Frege's philosophical thought, that propositions are primary. For Kemp (1998), this declaration carries two interrelated implications: Logical propositions are the real bearers of truth and falsity, and reasoning is a movement from one judgment to another (see p. 218). Frege posits that propositions are independent of mind, grammar, and language use. Knowledge and cognition are embodied in, but do not predicate, judgment. Frege adamantly rejects the notion that philosophical concepts are grounded in psychological phenomena, such as perception, sense impression, and some traditional accounts of meaning. This is the doctrine known as psychologism, and Frege abjures the suggestion that psychology can contain the sciences or adjudicate their findings (Frege 1956; for a discussion of this doctrine, see Notturno 1989; Davidson 1988; Davidson and Cosgrove 1991). The dictum that propositions are primary dispels the commonly held idea that reasoning begins with perception and proceeds... (shrink)

There is little work of a systematic nature in ethical theory or deontic logic on aretaic notions such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, despite their centrality to common-sense morality. Without more work, there is little hope of filling the even larger gap of attempting to develop frameworks integrating such aretaic concepts with deontic concepts of common-sense morality, such as what is obligatory, permissible, impermissible, or supererogatory. It is also clear in the case of aretaic concepts that agency is central to such (...) appraisal, so some agential notions must be integrated with aretaic concepts as well. The current paper takes the first step in a larger project aimed at the closure of these gaps. Here I sketch a simple framework for the aretaic appraisal of an agent's performance, layered on top of a simple framework for agency and predetermination. In Part I, I develop the framework for agency, ability, and inevitability, combining elements of work by Brown, Elgesem, Carmo, Santos, and Jones. In Part II, drawing on work by Chisholm and Sosa on intrinsic preferability, I sketch and explore a framework for defining aretaic superiority, praiseworthiness, blameworthiness, neutrality, and indifference, etc., retaining proper links to agency. (shrink)

Memoir and the Re-reading of Fiction: Rudy Wiebe's of this earth and Peace Shall Destroy Many Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe's award-winning memoir, of this earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, invites readers into a warm subjective realm in which a meditative Wiebe recounts his growing-up years from birth to age thirteen. As self-reflexive "rememberer," Wiebe explores the sensate freshness of a boy's ways of seeing, touching, and, not least, hearing the world. The young Wiebe lives with his parents (...) and siblings and neighbours in an emotionally warm Christian community of 1920s immigrants to Canada who have fled from the Soviet Union in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and who struggle for economic survival in a remote corner of rural Saskatchewan during the 1930s and 1940s. But Wiebe's memoir of childhood is not only autobiography and social history; it is also a linguistic text that subtly invites readers to look beyond its textual boundaries to his earlier work. In particular, it has the effect of carrying alert readers back to the setting—at least physically and geographically if not altogether socially and culturally—of Wiebe's first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many. That early novel was a caustic work notoriously controversial especially among Mennonite readers in Canada when it appeared almost a half-century ago. The 2006 memoir—with intertextual allusion—invites readers to recall especially one layer of that early novel barely noticed by readers, a layer eclipsed and partially hidden by the dominant narrative. Specifically, it invites readers to see the virtually sinless and prelapsarian world of the idealistic young Hal Wiens whose idyllic life in the fictional spaces of Peace Shall Destroy Many goes unnoticed because it is so very much in the shadow of the doubts and tensions that inform the much larger world of his spiritually troubled older brother, nineteen-year old Thom Wiens. The memoir pushes readers into re-thinking the reception of that novel, and into finding anew beneath its severe and satiric treatment of the austere adult world the linguistic and spiritual joy of life given shape in the playful perceptions of the young Hal. The memoir becomes a stimulus for a transformational re-reading of the novel. This essay explores the two works in light of each other and of conventions that govern the two respective genres. It attempts, also, to account for the reading strategies that Wiebe's 2006 memoir proposes to readers of his first novel, and for key influences informing the two respective works. (shrink)

Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe's award-winning memoir, of this earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, invites readers into a warm subjective realm in which a meditative Wiebe recounts his growing-up years from birth to age thirteen. As self-reflexive "rememberer," Wiebe explores the sensate freshness of a boy's ways of seeing, touching, and, not least, hearing the world. The young Wiebe lives with his parents and siblings and neighbours in an emotionally warm Christian community of 1920s immigrants to Canada who (...) have fled from the Soviet Union in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and who struggle for economic survival in a remote corner of rural Saskatchewan during the 1930s and 1940s. But Wiebe's memoir of childhood is not only autobiography and social history; it is also a linguistic text that subtly invites readers to look beyond its textual boundaries to his earlier work. In particular, it has the effect of carrying alert readers back to the setting—at least physically and geographically if not altogether socially and culturally—of Wiebe's first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many. That early novel was a caustic work notoriously controversial especially among Mennonite readers in Canada when it appeared almost a half-century ago. The 2006 memoir—with intertextual allusion—invites readers to recall especially one layer of that early novel barely noticed by readers, a layer eclipsed and partially hidden by the dominant narrative. Specifically, it invites readers to see the virtually sinless and prelapsarian world of the idealistic young Hal Wiens whose idyllic life in the fictional spaces of Peace Shall Destroy Many goes unnoticed because it is so very much in the shadow of the doubts and tensions that inform the much larger world of his spiritually troubled older brother, nineteen-year old Thom Wiens. The memoir pushes readers into re-thinking the reception of that novel, and into finding anew beneath its severe and satiric treatment of the austere adult world the linguistic and spiritual joy of life given shape in the playful perceptions of the young Hal. The memoir becomes a stimulus for a transformational re-reading of the novel. This essay explores the two works in light of each other and of conventions that govern the two respective genres. It attempts, also, to account for the reading strategies that Wiebe's 2006 memoir proposes to readers of his first novel, and for key influences informing the two respective works. (shrink)

Abstract:Sundarbans attracts worldwide attention for being the largest single block halophytic mangrove forest and for Royal Bengal Tiger. Along with ecological conservation, recent scholarly works demonstrate the importance of mangrove preservation for withstanding climate change-induced natural calamities. These conservation programs following the trend of the West separate human settlements from the forest and restrict human access to forest for maintaining wilderness; this I mark as the first wave of territorialization. Based on a case study of one of the village islands (...) in Sundarbans, adjacent to the core forest, I illustrate how in this dynamic delta the recent changes in the islanders' outlook toward life and livelihoods, as induced by the first wave of territorialization, leading them to embrace a second wave of territorialization and to what extent that is impacting the sustainability of human settlements in this dynamic delta. It also elaborates as soon as islanders’ living practice turns into livelihoods, they become reluctant to take up those traditional livelihoods as being perceived ‘risky,’ ‘painful,’ ‘uncertain,’ and ‘destructive for Sundarbans.’ The villagers' intention to find a better and more respected livelihood directs them toward the city and leads them to normalize and in turn concretize the already-imposed forest—settlement territorial division. This concretization of the boundary is termed here as the second wave of territorialization. I posit the upshot of this is a double layer of distancing, which is detrimental to the longterm sustainability of nature—human relationship in this dynamic delta. In a nutshell, this article argues that the inherent understanding about this liminal landscape that these islanders gather while engaging with traditional livelihoods are crucial to combat the massive climate change-induced alterations that this delta is going to witness in the near future. Therefore, this disengagement is not only devastating for the ecology of the Sundarbans; it is going to be even more threatening to the human settlements of this area. (shrink)

Differentiating self from other has been investigated at the neural level, and its incorporation into the model proposed Hurley is necessary for the model to be complete. With an emphasis on the feed-forward model in layer 2, we examine the role that self and other disruptions, including auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs), may have in expanding the model proposed by Hurley.

Arguing that today’s burgeoning globalization literature still neglects the investigation of powerful subjective dynamics of growing social interconnectivity, this article explores how various ideological articulations of globalization have shaped its material designs and in­stantiations. The thickening of global consciousness can be conceptualized along the three interrelated dimensions or layers of ideology, imaginary, and ontology. Each of these three layers of subjective globalization is constituted in practice at an ever-greater generality, durability, and depth. Normative contestations continue, but they tend to have (...) a common global point of reference—albeit not to the exclusion of the national. (shrink)

Summary In a much-quoted passage of the “Natural History”, Pliny describes several wine press mechanisms. This description is of great historical importance, since it is the only such textual description of a vitally important class of technologies used for the production throughout the Roman Empire of both wine and olive oil, dietary staples in the ancient Mediterranean. Pliny’s text has been quoted and used as the basis for discussions of Roman farming and technological history for many decades. Yet it has (...) never been properly understood in the light of related and recently published archaeological evidence, and close attention has never been paid to developing a precise translation, or to Pliny’s painstaking grammatical construction and word choices. A thorough and critical re-examination of the text reveals that modern scholars have routinely misinterpreted Pliny’s account of ancient press technology. In this paper, a new translation is offered, which more accurately aligns with archaeological and ethnographic evidence and which attempts to strip away the layers of modern interpretation, to rediscover previously ignored or misunderstood elements, and to restore the original sense of Pliny’s passage. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd Reviews 161 7 In, respectively, PaciWsm in Britain and Semi-Detached Idealists: the British Peace Movement and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2000). 8 See Monk 2: Chap. 13. FUNCTIONS OR PROPOSITIONAL FUNCTIONS? Alexander Paul Bozzo Philosophy / Marquette U. Milwaukee, wi 53233, usa [email protected] Michael Potter and Tom Ricketts, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Frege. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge (...) U. P., 2010. Pp. vii, 630. isbn 978-0-521-62479-4 (pb). £57.00; £21.99 (pb). us$38.99 (pb). February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd 162 Reviews 1 Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (Cambridge, ma: Harvard U. P., 1991), p. 111. The paragraph contains an expression of Frege’s Context Principle and the need for Hume’s Principle as a criterion of identity in the deWnition of number. 2 There are in fact Wve stated goals. The others are: (iii) to serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists, (iv) to provide a route into the study of Frege historically and to any relevant contemporary concerns in the philosophies of logic, language, mathematics, and mind, and (v) to provide, for new readers, the most convenient detailed guide to Frege currently available. Gottlob Frege is widely recognized as one of the chief progenitors of mathematical logic and philosophy of languagez—zindeed, the importance attributed to Frege’s innovations is such that Michael Dummett, when reXecting on§62 of Frege’s Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, feels compelled to remark that the paragraph therein is “arguably the most pregnant philosophical paragraph ever written.”1 Whether or not one agrees with Dummett on this point, the magnitude of Frege’s inXuence on the current philosophical landscape is incontestable. Frege revolutionized the then dominant Aristotelian conception of logic, introducing a formal language now recognized as the predicate calculus. Central to this end were Frege’s insights on quantiWcation, the notation that expressed it, the logicist project, and the extension of mathematical notions like function and argument to natural language. The long-awaited Cambridge Companion to Frege is a compendium of Fregean scholarship that rigorously explores these and similar topics; editors Thomas Ricketts and Michael Potter have compiled a comprehensive collection of fourteen essays that individually provide focused appraisals of a number of Frege’s most substantial insights. On the advice of this journal’s editor, I have limited my review to the connections (or rather dissimilarities ) that exist between Frege and Russell, relying exclusively on Peter Hylton ’s contribution to the collection, “Frege and Russell”. Following a brief consideration of the volume as a whole, I move immediately into a detailed explication of Hylton’s analysis. The volume includes among its goals the following two aims: (i) to provide, for advanced students and specialists, a conspectus of recent interpretation of Frege, and (ii) to dispel the intimidation felt by readers who confront a diUcult thinker.2 I single out these ambitions because they most clearly represent the volume’s strengths and shortcomings. Enthusiasts of Frege will not be disappointed by the multitude of rigorously and technically written essays, essays that contribute substantially and originally to the collective understanding of Frege and his work. For instance, Thomas Ricketts provides a thoughtful and thorough analysis—an analysis that moves well beyond mere explication—of Frege’s concept/object distinction, in particular its relevance for Frege’s Context Principle and logicism more generally. Similarly, Richard Heck addresses a number of central yet largely unexplored issues pertaining to the overall signiWcance of February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd Reviews 163 3 I strongly encourage that non-specialists augment The Cambridge Companion to Frege with Joan Weiner’s Frege Explained: from Arithmetic to Analytic Philosophy (Chicago : Open Court, 2004), one of the best available introductory texts on Frege. 4 The essay in fact was available as early as 2005 in Hylton’s Propositions, Functions, and Analysis: Selected Essays on Russell’s Philosophy (New York, ny: Oxford U. P., 2005). The editors of The Cambridge Companion to Frege partially... (shrink)

A landmark volume explores photographer Henry Hamilton Bennett's many-layered relationship with Wisconsin Dells Native peoples, the Ho-Chunk, places Bennett within the context of contemporary artists and photographers of American Indians, ...