本书包括:在北京广播学院的讲演;在北京青年政治学院报告;沈昌案答辩词;李之焕案答辩词等内容。.

The concept of plasticity has always been present in the history of developmental biology, both within the theory of epigenesis and within morphogenesis studies. However this tradition relies also upon a genetic conception of plasticity. Founded upon the concepts of ‘‘phenotypic plasticity’’ and ‘‘reaction norm,’’ this genetic conception focuses on the array of possible phenotypic change in relation to diversified environments. Another concept of plasticity can be found in recent publications by some developmental biologists (Gilbert, West-Eberhard). I argue that these (...) authors adopt a ‘‘broad conception of plasticity’’ that is closely related to a notion of development as something that is ongoing throughout an organism’s lifecycle, and has no clear-cut boundaries. However, I suggest that given a narrow conception of plasticity, one can define temporal boundaries for development that are linked to specific features of the morphological process, which are different from behavioral and physiological processes. (shrink)

The heterogeneity problem, which stems from the alleged difficulty of finding out what all pleasant experiences have in common, is largely considered as a substantial issue in the philosophy of pleasure, one that is usually taken as the starting point for theorizing about the essence of pleasure. The goal of this paper is to move the focus away from the heterogeneity problem and toward an alternative approach to pleasure. To do this, I first show that, although the approach stemming from (...) the heterogeneity problem has led to an interesting discussion about the essence of pleasure, it has usually endorsed an introspectionist methodology and other problematic assumptions that have led to doubtful results. I thus propose a natural-kind approach to pleasure, which seeks to determine what, if any, the natural kind of pleasure would consist in. This approach broadens the investigation of pleasure by enabling the use of a larger range of methodological tools, thus opening new promising directions for research. (shrink)

One of the main objections against effective altruism is the so-called institutional critique, according to which the EA movement neglects interventions that affect large-scale institutions. Alexander Dietz has recently put forward an interesting version of this critique, based on a theoretical problem affecting act-utilitarianism, which he deems as potentially conclusive against effective altruism. In this article I argue that his critique is not as promising as it seems. I then go on to propose another version of the institutional critique. In (...) contrast to Dietz's version, it targets not the core principles of effective altruism but rather some important methodological assumptions made in EA research, namely diminishing marginal returns and low-hanging fruits. One key conclusion is that it may be time for critics of effective altruism to shift their attention from the theoretical core principles of effective altruism towards the methodological tools actually employed in practice by the EA movement. (shrink)

Revelation, or the view that the essence of phenomenal properties is presented to us, is as intuitively attractive as it is controversial. It is notably at the core of defences of anti-physicalism. I propose in this paper a new argument against Revelation. It is usually accepted that low-level sensory phenomenal properties, like phenomenal red, loudness or brightness, stand in relation of similarity and quantity. Furthermore, these similarity and quantitative relations are taken to be internal, that is, to be fixed by (...) what their relata are. I argue that, under some plausible additional premises, no account of what grounds these relations in the essence of their relata is consistent with Revelation, at least if we take common phenomenological descriptions for granted. As a result, the plausibility of Revelation is undermined. One might however resist this conclusion by weakening the epistemic relation postulated between subjects and their phenomenal properties. (shrink)

The paper describes the context and the origin of a particular debate that concerns the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. In 1965, British biologist A. D. Bradshaw proposed a widely cited model intended to explain the evolution of norms of reaction, based on his studies of plant populations. Bradshaw’s model went beyond the notion of the “adaptive norm of reaction” discussed before him by Dobzhansky and Schmalhausen by suggesting that “plasticity” the ability of a phenotype to be modified by the environment (...) should be genetically determined. To prove Bradshaw’s hypothesis, it became necessary for some authors to identify the pressures exerted by natural selection on phenotypic plasticity in particular traits, and thus to model its evolution. In this paper, I contrast two different views, based on quantitative genetic models, proposed in the mid-1980s: Russell Lande and Sara Via’s conception of phenotypic plasticity, which assumes that the evolution of plasticity is linked to the evolution of the plastic trait itself, and Samuel Scheiner and Richard Lyman’s view, which assumes that the evolution of plasticity is independent from the evolution of the trait. I show how the origin of this specific debate, and different assumptions about the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, depended on Bradshaw’s definition of plasticity and the context of quantitative genetics. (shrink)

L'hédonisme axiologique a une longue histoire en philosophie. Pourtant, il garde une mauvaise réputation qui lui vaut d’être parfois écarté sans ménagement de la discussion philosophique. Cet article se propose de défendre l'hédonisme axiologique en exposant les principaux arguments en sa faveur et en répondant aux principales critiques et confusions dont il fait l'objet. Une attention particulière sera portée aux arguments établissant la spécificité du plaisir et du déplaisir par rapport à toutes les autres choses — amitié, savoir, justice, etc. (...) — dont on pourrait argumenter la valeur finale.While axiological hedonism has a long history in philosophy, it also has a bad reputation, which has led to it being discarded without proper examination of its plausibility. In this article, I defend axiological hedonism by presenting the main arguments in its favour as well as the criticisms and confusions to which it has been subjected. I pay special attention to the arguments that hint at the specificity of pleasure and displeasure in comparison with other things — friendship, knowledge, justice, etc. — that might be argued to have final value. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at rationalizing relationships between the structure of inorganic compounds in condensed phases and their melting and boiling points. It is documented that the main factor governing both points is their molecular or polymeric nature. In case of polymeric ionic compounds, the higher actual charge bearing by the ions involved, the higher their melting/boiling points. In case of covalent polymers, the value of both points increases with polymer dimensionality and with the number and energy of the respective (...) covalent bonds. In case of molecular compounds, both points depend on the weight and shape of molecules, the presence of hydrogen bonds, and electric quadrupole moment. (shrink)

Este artigo retoma os conceitos de poder disciplinar e biopoder em Michel Foucault para, então, fazer um diagnóstico do contexto pandêmico causado pela Covid-19. Ao se considerar que mais da metade da população mundial foi orientada ao isolamento social, bem como à alteração de hábitos cotidianos a fim de diminuir a propagação do vírus SARS-CoV-2, é possível perceber em Foucault as medidas da técnica disciplinar e da tecnologia biopolítica, ambas direcionadas à preservação da vida da população. Considera-se que o poder (...) disciplinar e o biopoder funcionam na atual pandemia num contexto inédito, marcado pelo avanço tecnológico. (shrink)

Background and AimsEnd-of-life discussions can be difficult for seriously ill adolescents and young adults. Researchers aimed to determine whether completing Voicing My CHOiCES —a research-informed advance care planning guide—increased communication with family, friends, or health care providers, and to evaluate the experience of those with whom VMC was shared.MethodsFamily, friends, or HCPs who the AYAs had shared their completed VMC with were administered structured interviews to assess their perception of the ACP discussion, changes in their relationship, conversation quality, and whether (...) the discussion prompted changes in care. Open-ended responses underwent thematic analysis.ResultsOne-month post-completion, 65.1% of AYA had shared VMC completion with a family member, 22.6% with a friend, and 8.9% with an HCP. Among a sample of respondents, family and friends reported a positive change in their relationship with the AYA. Participant descriptions of the experience fell into five themes: positive experience, difficult experience, appreciated a guide to facilitate discussion, provided relief, and created worry/anxiety. Only 1 HCP noted a treatment change. Family, friends, and HCP did not think the AYA would have discussed EoL preferences without completing VMC.ConclusionsVMC has potential to enhance communication about ACP between AYA and their family and friends, though less frequently with HCPs. Participants reported a positive change in their relationship with the AYA after discussing VMC, and described experiencing the conversation as favorable, even when also emotionally difficult. (shrink)

November 4th-5th, 2012 at Kyoto University. Organizers: Hisashi Nakao & Pierre-Alain Braillard.

Two sextants constructed for Tycho Brahe are preserved in the National Technical Museum in Prague. One was constructed by Erasmus Habermel, the other by Jost Bürgi. Both were made in the year 1600. To overcome the observational errors, several improvements were made in the construction of these instruments, especially in the case of Bürgi's sextant. It would appear both from these instruments and from his tables of sines that Tycho wanted to reduce the errors to one minute of arc. A (...) replica of Bürgi's sextant, which is currently under construction, will allow the accuracy of the instrument to be tested. (shrink)

Tout au long de son histoire, la philosophie s’est sentie menacée par le moment sensuel de l’art, le plaisir pris qui risquait de mettre la raison hors d’elle-même. Là où Platon s’en défendit par l’exclusion de la poésie hors de l’enceinte de la cité philosophique, Kant tenta de le domestiquer en l’intégrant au dedans des murs du système. Il espérait ainsi, en assignant une place déterminée au plaisir et au désir, en maîtriser les débordements. Mais le pouvoir de séduction de (...) l’art, comme celui des femmes auquel Kant le renvoie, ne se laisseront pas si aisément contenir dans l’économie systémique et viendront déranger le subtil équilibre architectonique de l’édifice critique. (shrink)

Dans Le Capital, le phénomène du fétichisme apparaît bien plus lié aux conditions générales de l’échange qu’à celles de l’exploitation capitaliste. Il n’est dès lors pas certain qu’il disparaisse dans la société post-capitaliste que décrit Marx dans ce même ouvrage, parce que cette société maintient le principe de l’échange équivalent. C’est seulement dans la Critique du programme de Gotha que Marx semble prendre conscience de cette difficulté, à laquelle il répond en opposant au principe bourgeois du droit l’idée d’un « (...) droit inégal ». Cette idée, dans sa radicalité, serait à rapprocher de ce que Derrida pense sous le nom de justice.In Das Kapital, fetishism appears to be more closely linked to generic exchange conditions than to capitalist exploitation. Consequently, fetishism may endure in the post-capitalist society envisioned by Marx in this same work, because this society will maintain the principle of equivalent exchange. Marx seems to realize this difficulty only in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, where he tries to solve it by opposing to the bourgeois law system the idea of « inegal law ». This idea, and its radical content, can be discussed in relation to the concept of justice as it is developed by Derrida. (shrink)

Demuth tests generalize Martin-Löf tests in that one can exchange the m-th component a computably bounded number of times. A set fails a Demuth test if Z is in infinitely many final versions of the Gm. If we only allow Demuth tests such that GmGm+1 for each m, we have weak Demuth randomness.We show that a weakly Demuth random set can be high and , yet not superhigh. Next, any c.e. set Turing below a Demuth random set is strongly jump-traceable.We (...) also prove a basis theorem for non-empty classes P. It extends the Jockusch–Soare basis theorem that some member of P is computably dominated. We use the result to show that some weakly 2-random set does not compute a 2-fixed point free function. (shrink)

Kuera, A., On relative randomness, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 63 61–67. It is the aim of the paper to answer a question raised by M. van Lambalgen and D. Zambella whether there can be a nonrecursive set A having the property that there is a set B such that B is 1-random relative to A and simultaneously A is recursive in B. We give apositive answer to this question as well as further information about relative randomness.

A positive answer to a question of M. van Lambalgen and D. Zambella whether there exist nonrecursive sets that are low for the class of random sets is obtained. Here a set A is low for the class RAND of random sets if RAND = RAND A.

In this article, which is based on twenty four months of combined online and off-line ethnographic research, I show the way that some Iranian diasporic bloggers use their weblogs as entrepreneurship resources during the ‘war on terror’. Through a discourse analysis of a documentary film about Weblogistan and interviews with diasporic Iranian bloggers in Toronto, I argue that Weblogistan is implicated in discourses of militarism and neoliberalism that interpellate the representable Iranian blogger as a gendered neoliberal homo oeconomicus. The production (...) of knowledge about Iran in transnational encounters between the media, think tanks, policy institutions and the Iranian diasporic self-entrepreneurs, relies on gendered civilizational discourses that are inherently tied to the ‘war on terror’. Following feminist scholars who have theorized militarism and gender, I argue that dominant representations of Weblogistan produce different gendered subject positions for Iranian bloggers. Although the masculine blogger soldier takes freedom to Iran through his active participation in proper politics (enabled by his freedom of speech in North America and Europe), the woman blogger finds freedom of expression in writing about sex and telling the truth of her sex in a confessional mode. It is in this war of representation that women bloggers negotiate their subjectivity while shuttling in and out of local and global politics, as subjects of politics (markers of freedom and oppression) and political abjects (not worthy of political participation). (shrink)

本书配合《鬼谷子》的原文、译文及白话经典故事来诠释当今社会必学的谋略,使读者在短时间内获得丰富的历史知识和文学享受,领悟古典文化的精髓所在。.

Antonin Artaud was a poet, theorist, philosopher, essayist, playwright, actor and director, and one of the 20th century’s most important theoreticians of drama. His theory of the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ has influenced playwrights as diverse as Beckett, Genet, Albee and Gelber. Magic was always a central concept for Artaud, and in nearly all his writing it is given the most positive force, as something capable of healing the rift between words and things, culture and life. But during his nine (...) years of incarceration in mental asylums, magic seemed to lose its illuminating transformative power and to become demonic and persecutory. Artaud entered the realm of spectres and vampires which he believed were sucking the vitality from his mind and body. Artaud later filled twelve little exercise books with an account of his struggles to escape this physical, psychological and artistic hell. The first eleven books are filled with fragments of writing and extraordinary sketches of totemic figures, pierced bodies and enigmatic machines. Two months before his death, he took a twelfth exercise book and wrote a remarkable, incantatory text, 50 Drawings to Murder Magic. It was the last thing he wrote. (shrink)

We show that there is a low T-upper bound for the class of K-trivial sets, namely those which are weak from the point of view of algorithmic randomness. This result is a special case of a more general characterization of ideals in $\Delta _2^0 $ T-degrees for which there is a low T-upper bound.

In 1956, in his Principles of Embryology, Conrad Hal Waddington explained that the word “epigenetics” should be used to translate and update Wilhelm Roux’ German notion of “Entwicklungsmechanik” to qualify the studies focusing on the mechanisms of development. When Waddington mentioned it in 1956, the notion of epigenetics was not yet popular, as it would become from the 1980s. However, Waddington referred first to the notion in the late 1930s. While his late allusion clearly reveals that Waddington readily associated the (...) notion of epigenetics with the developmental process, in the contemporary uses of the notion this developmental connotation seems to have disappeared. The advent and success of molecular biology have probably contributed to focusing biologists’ attention on the “genetic” or the “non-genetic” over the “developmental”. In the present paper, I first examine the links that exist, in Waddington’s work, between the classical notion of epigenesis in embryology and those of epigenetics that Waddington proposed to connect, and even synthesize, data both from embryology and genetics. Second, I show that Waddington’s own view of epigenetics has changed over time and I analyze how these changes appear through his many representations of the relationships between genetic signals and developmental processes. (shrink)

Semantic deference allows for the meaning of a word w a speaker uses to be determined by the way other speakers would understand or use w. That semantic deference has some role to play in semantic content attributions is intuitive enough. Nevertheless, the exact conditions under which semantic deference takes place are still open for discussion. A key issue that the article critically examines is Recanati’s requirement that deferential uses be grounded, that is, that deferential uses be linked to non-deferential (...) uses (Recanati 1997; 2000). After distinguishing between semantic and epistemic deference, I submit that the only way to maintain the Groundedness Thesis for truly semantic deference is to allow deference to idealized future linguistic collectives. I conclude that this is too high a price to pay for Groundedness and I suggest that it should be rejected as a semantic thesis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Polemical terms constitute a special category of polysemous terms. Like all polysemous terms, their use evidences a plurality of conventionalised senses that are felt to be related to one another and, possibly, to a highly abstract core meaning. However, in contrast with ordinary polysemous terms such as rubbish or mouth, polemical terms have something ‘polemical’ about what counts as their primary sense, i.e. the one which is the most faithful to the ‘concept’ they express and to the ‘topic’ they (...) pick out. This poses a challenge for theories that take speakers’ monosemic intuitions seriously and endorse the externalist thesis that it is speakers’ external environment that anchors word meaning in a univocal way. I consider Schroeter and Schroeter’s ‘connectedness model’, which offers an externalist dissociation between ‘concepts’ and the possibly diverging criteria used by speakers. I argue that the model can be adapted to tackle the problem of polemical terms, but only insofar as the assumption of alignment between externalistic concepts and lexical meanings is dropped. I submit that polemical terms do have an abstract core meaning, but of a more impressionistic than conceptual nature. (shrink)

How do we understand the world around us? How do we solve problems? Often the answer to these questions follows a certain pattern, an algorithm if you wish. This is the case when our analytical left-brain side is at work. However, there are also elements in our behaviour where intelligence appears to follow a more elusive path, which cannot easily be characterised as a specific sequence of steps. Is Intelligence an Algorithm? offers an insight into intelligence as it functions in (...) nature, like human or animal intelligence, but also sheds light on modern developments in the field of artificial intelligence, proposing further architectural solutions for the creation of a so-called global Webmind"--Amazon.com. (shrink)

« Proust, ce vieil enfant… »Walter BenjaminEn 1954, à l’occasion de la publication du premier volume de la nouvelle édition allemande de La Recherche du temps perdu, Adorno est invité à s’exprimer à la radio de Hesse. Il ouvre son intervention par la remarque suivante : « Il me faut au préalable observer que je ne peux pas parler du livre que je présente comme le ferait un critique. Depuis trente ans,...

Hannah Arendt plačiai žinoma kaip filosofė, kuri mėgino reabilituoti senovės graikų politikos sampratą. Remiantis Žmogaus būklės skaitymu, Arendt paprastai laikoma „graikofile“, jai prikišama „Atėnų nostalgija“. Sunku paneigti Arendt simpatijas graikams – ji iš tiesų atsigręžė į atėniečių politikos supratimą, bandydama jame iškristalizuoti kertinius autentiškos politikos elementus. Vis dėlto ši interpretacija yra pernelyg vienpusiška. Didžiausius nuopelnus politikos suvokimo srityje Arendt priskiria ne graikams, o romėnams. Pastarieji žymiai geriau sprendė politikos stabilumo, tęstinumo ir tvarumo problemą. Visą dėmesį sutelkiant į veiksmą, spontaniškumą ir (...) nepaprastus žygdarbius, kyla grėsmė destabilizuoti ir „išcentruoti“ politinės bend­rijos gyvenimą. Romėnai, įvesdami tokias sąvokas kaip tradicija, autoritetas, steigties (įkūrimo) šventumas, teisė (lex), taip pat pabrėždami politinę atleidimo ir pažado reikšmę, atveria graikams svetimą politinės sedimentacijos plotmę. Ši plotmė suteikia būtinus saugiklius, be kurių tvari politinė egzistencija yra neįmanoma. (shrink)

Osvald Demuth studied constructive analysis from the viewpoint of the Russian school of constructive mathematics. In the course of his work he introduced various notions of effective null set which, when phrased in classical language, yield a number of major algorithmic randomness notions. In addition, he proved several results connecting constructive analysis and randomness that were rediscovered only much later.In this paper, we trace the path that took Demuth from his constructivist roots to his deep and innovative work on the (...) interactions between constructive analysis, algorithmic randomness, and computability theory. We will focus specifically on Demuth’s work on the differentiability of Markov computable functions and his study of constructive versions of the Denjoy alternative, Demuth’s independent discovery of the main notions of algorithmic randomness, as well as the development of Demuth randomness, and the interactions of truth-table reducibility, algorithmic randomness, and semigenericity in Demuth’s work. (shrink)

Quand nous lisons un livre passionnant, quand nous passons une bonne soirée avec des amis ou quand nous dégustons des mets raffinés, nous nous trouvons parfois dans un état de plaisir. La notion de plaisir traverse de nombreux champs de recherche en philosophie. Une question centrale reste sans doute celle de sa nature : qu’est-ce donc que le plaisir ? Pour y répondre, une comparaison avec d'autres entités mentales plus familières se révèle fructueuse, et permet de mettre à jour ses (...) spécificités propres. La définition du plaisir doit rendre compte de sa diversité, puisque le plaisir semble toujours se présenter sous des formes multiples : qu'y a-t-il de commun parmi toutes les instances de plaisir ? Par ailleurs, le plaisir semble souvent avoir un objet, ce qui soulève une série de questions : Quel type de chose peut être un objet du plaisir ? Dans quelle mesure l'objet du plaisir constitue-t-il le plaisir lui-même ? Plus généralement, quelle est la nature du lien entre le plaisir et son objet ? Ces questions seront abordées dans la Section 1. Au-delà de ces questions définitionnelles, des questions plus spécifiques se posent concernant la manière dont on peut rendre compte du plaisir dans une optique naturaliste : dans quelle mesure le plaisir est-il une entité qui s’intègre dans une image unifiée du monde dans lequel on vit ? Puisqu'il est généralement entendu que la science manifeste cette ambition unificatrice, comment peut-on rendre compte du plaisir de manière scientifique ? La Section 2 est dédiée à ces questions. Une des principales difficultés rencontrées est que le plaisir ne semble pas neutre. Il paraît plutôt avoir une valeur affective positive, dans un sens qui reste bien sûr à éclaircir. Cette valeur se manifeste d'abord dans le fait que le plaisir est susceptible d'orienter nos actions et réactions : nous sommes typiquement attirés par le plaisir, de la même manière que nous cherchons à éviter la souffrance. C'est l'aspect motivationnel du plaisir. La valeur affective du plaisir semble cependant aller au-delà de son rôle motivationnel, pour donner lieu à des caractéristiques normatives. Non seulement le plaisir motive certaines actions, mais il les justifierait aussi, en fournissant des raisons d'agir qui semblent valides. Plus encore, le plaisir semble bon pour nous, ou nous faire du bien. Il semble donc avoir une valeur prudentielle, en ce qu'il contribuerait à rendre notre vie meilleure. Cela pourrait alors justifier son intégration dans le domaine de la morale. Ces considérations seront l’objet de la Section 3. (shrink)