Cet article propose un tour d’horizon de différents types de biais que l’on peut rencontrer dans les études basées sur l’annotation de corpus vidéo de langue des signes. En tâchant de situer objectivement les choix effectués et les biais potentiels à chaque étape, nous décrivons les méthodologies que nous avons mises en place dans trois études, portant respectivement sur la synchronisation des composantes corporelles, le mouvement des sourcils et les clignements des yeux, puis la coarticulation.

Background/ObjectiveSeveral studies have examined the impact of Parkinson’s disease on the quality of couples’ relationships. To date, few studies have explored how couples experience their relationship dynamic by taking into account the disease stage. The objectives of this study were to understand the experience of each partner and to study the mechanisms that underlie their couple organization in the advanced stage of PD.MethodsSemistructured individual interviews conducted with fifteen patients and their partners were the subject of a dyadic interpretative phenomenological analysis.ResultsThree (...) themes were identified from the analysis: the first, “A Closeness That Separates,” allows the identification of different patterns of interactions that lead to emotional distancing between the partners; the second, “The Adversity Is Not Unbearable, But Going It Alone Would Be,” emphasizes the importance of how the assisting partner provides support; and the third, “Be Prepared for Anything and Facing an Uncertain Future,” reveals the extent and modes of the dyadic regulation of the emotions linked to what the future may hold.ConclusionPsychological support is important to help couples express both their feelings and their respective needs in the evolving context of PD. (shrink)

La capacité des êtres humains à obéir aux ordres, même si ceux-ci sont jugés atroces, n’a plus à être prouvée. Comme l’a souligné Howard Zinn, « D’un point de vue historique, les évènements les plus terribles – tels que la guerre, les génocides et l’esclavage – ont résulté non pas de la désobéissance, mais de l’obéissance» (Zinn, 1997). Mais la question de savoir « comment» les individus peuvent commettre des atrocités lorsqu’ils suivent des ordres reste ouverte. Les études de Milgram (...) sont célèbres pour avoir montré une forte soumission aux ordres de l’expérimentateur. Mais ces études n’ont révélé que les facteurs situationnels et sociaux favorisant l’obéissance. Elles n’ont pas permis de comprendre comment tant de personnes ont accepté d’envoyer des chocs douloureux et potentiellement mortels à une autre personne. Dans cet article, j’opposerai les entretiens qualitatifs réalisés avec d’anciens génocidaires au Rwanda et la recherche expérimentale en neurosciences pour tenter de faire émerger un élément de réponse à cette question critique. Je soutiendrai que le dépassement des frontières entre différentes disciplines scientifiques est la clé d’une meilleure compréhension de la façon dont l’obéissance modifie la prosocialité. Je défendrai également l’idée provocatrice que les chercheurs devraient saisir l’opportunité de quitter leur laboratoire pour étudier la question de l’obéissance. (shrink)

The haploid male germ cell differentiation program controls essential steps of male gametogenesis and relies partly on a significant number of sex chromosome‐linked genes. These genes need to escape chromosome‐wide transcriptional repression of sex chromosomes, which occurs during meiosis and is largely maintained in post‐meiotic cells. A newly discovered histone lysine modification, crotonylation (Kcr), marks X/Y‐linked genes that are active in post‐meiotic male germ cells. Histone Kcr, by conferring resistance to transcriptional repressors, could be a dominant element in maintaining these (...) genes active in the globally repressive environment of haploid cell sex chromosomes. Furthermore, the same mark was found associated with post‐meiotically activated genes on autosomes. Histone Kcr therefore appears to be an indicator of the male haploid cell gene expression program and a notable element of genome programming in the post‐meiotic phases of spermatogenesis. (shrink)

Background To characterize patients dying in a community hospital with or without attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation and to describe patient involvement in, documentation of, and compliance with decisions on resuscitation. Methods All patients who died in Kalmar County Hospital during January 1, 2016 until December 31, 2016 were included. All information from the patients’ electronic chart was analysed. Results Of 660 patients female), 30 were pronounced dead in the emergency department after out-of-hospital CPR. Of the remaining 630 patients a DNAR order (...) had been documented in 558 patients. Seventy had no DNAR order and 2 an explicit order to do CPR. In 43 of these 70 patients CPR was unsuccessfully attempted while the remaining 27 patients died without attempting CPR. In 2 of 558 patients CPR was attempted despite a DNAR order in place. In 412 patients the DNAR order had not been discussed with neither patient nor family/friends. Moreover, in 75 cases neither patient nor family/friends were even informed about the decision on code status. Conclusions In general, a large percentage of patients in our study had a DNAR order in place. However, 27 patients died without CPR attempt or DNAR order. DNAR orders had not been discussed with the patient/surrogate in almost three fourths of the patients. Further work has to be done to elucidate the barriers to discussions of CPR decisions with the patient. (shrink)

Cette note de recherche prend pour point de départ un certain nombre d’observations empiriques sur les pratiques d’écritures relatives à la « rédaction web ». Son ancrage est celui de l’analyse du discours, envisagée comme discipline interprétative et lecture critique des énoncés mais aussi comme démarche susceptible d’apporter sa contribution à une didactique de l’écrit. Nous y livrons quelques premiers éléments de réflexion pour la caractérisation discursive des textes issus de la rédaction web, prenant en compte pour cela à la (...) fois la composante discursive de ces productions et les discours construisant la rédaction web comme pratique d’écriture. A partir de deux exemples, nous montrons que les normes dominantes de la rédaction web, liées notamment aux contraintes du support et à des enjeux économiques, sont diversement prises en compte suivant la sphère d'activité où sont produits les textes. (shrink)

This paper draws on an in-depth phenomenological analysis of some interviews taken from volunteers, inviting them to reflect on their lived experiences of meaningfulness in the context of volunteering and citizenship. It is found that while some testimonies reinforce the standard conceptions of meaningfulness, other testimonies vary from it. The main challenge of this contribution consists in phenomenologically describing this alternative picture of meaningfulness, depicted as the event of wit(h)nessing. In a final part, the authors consider how volunteering is at (...) times especially prone to further experiences of wit(h)nessing. (shrink)

Si les animaux d’élevage comme les animaux d’expérimentation intéressent depuis une trentaine d’années de plus en plus de personnes – de chercheurs, de militants –, les animaux dit de compagnie, en revanche, semblent toujours pâtir du préjugé selon lequel, parce qu’ils relèveraient d’une relation privée, ils seraient sans intérêt scientifique ou philosophique. Donna Haraway propose une façon tout à fait singulière de court-circuiter cet arrêt de la pensée afin de pouvoir re-problématiser cette relation à nouveau frais. Ce qui change immédiatement, (...) c’est le caractère non plus privé mais politique de cette co-relation : l’histoire biologique et politique qui nous unit à ces animaux dit de compagnie apparus massivement dans les années 1970 est toute aussi complexe que celle que nous partageons par ailleurs avec nos autres espèces compagnes. Comment raconter cette histoire et hériter des conséquences de cette co-évolution? Comment prendre au sérieux, moralement, politiquement nos relations inter-espèces? (shrink)

Dans son ouvrage La libération animale, Peter Singer développe trois grandes idées : le principe d'égale considération des intérêts, le rejet du spécisme et la nécessité de mettre un terme à certains types d'exploitation des animaux, notamment ceux qui ont trait à la recherche et à l'élevage industriel. Cette oeuvre phare a connu un retentissement immense, à tel point que sa publication, en 1975, a été présentée comme le moment clef dans l'émergence du mouvement éponyme. Cependant, le mouvement de libération (...) animale ne saurait se réduire à la seule pensée singerienne. Ce mouvement extrêmement protéiforme a fait l'objet de débats intenses à l'interne, entre les défenseurs des animaux eux-mêmes qui privilégient des approches diverses, comme à l'externe, entre ceux qui défendent le statu quo ou contestent les arguments animalistes. L'objet de ce recueil est de revenir sur le lien entre le mouvement de libération animale et les théories de Peter Singer qui, à tort ou à raison, en est perçu comme le père fondateur. Comment l'éthique animale de l'auteur a-t-elle été accueillie depuis la publication de La libération animale, et comment a-t-elle évolué? Quelle place la doctrine utilitariste occupe-t-elle dans le travail de Singer et dans les débats qu'il a engendrés? C'est en effet dans cette doctrine parente que résident les écueils auxquels s'est heurté le travail de l'auteur. C'est aussi là que son système a trouvé sa force et sa simplicité caractéristiques. C'est aussi, semble-t-il, ce qui fait la fécondité de ses idées. (shrink)

Chora – le «cratère à mélanger» maternel, vannant et secouant de Platon – remplit «l’écart explicatif» entre les paradigmes formels «intelligibles et toujours existants» (48E5) et un monde encosmique «généré et visible». Proclus traite la gamme polysémique des termes utilisés par Platon pour chôra : hypodochê (réceptacle), kratêr (cratère à mélanger), etc., comme désignant des forces actives dans un univers où la sympathie cosmique règne, à partir des plus élevées, jusqu’aux plus basses manifestations de l’ «Un» transcendant. L’univers proclusien est (...) un «hénothéisme», dans lequel une «unité» dominante surgit sur la totalité de l’Être et du Devenir. Chôra permet à la fois au monde immatériel et au monde matériel de recevoir, de manière appropriée à chacun, les mêmes dons transcendants que leurs homologues intellectifs‑intelligibles superieurs. Aucun niveau de la réalité n’est dépourvu de cette donation. La réceptivité (hypodochê), indéterminée, mais toujours active, est présente à tous les niveaux. L’âme reçoit l’Intellect, la temporalité reçoit le temps monadique, la matière reçoit la structure géométrique polyédrique, etc. Chôra n’est pas l’equivalent de la matière, mais permet à la matière d’être imprimée par des paradigmes formels. Dans son rôle de «cratère à mélanger», elle protège la matière de sa potentielle itérabilité et dissolution infinie. Dans l’univers proclusien, le Bien atteint la dernière et la plus extrême de ses limites, il est espace et lieu, recevant à la fois l’expansivité et une capacité à donner place à la forme pour qu’elle puisse s’imposer à la matière. Après tout, les dons lui sont accordés depuis la plus haute hypostase, celle de la Limite et de l’Illimité, premier niveau après l’Un lui‑même. Vitale pour la création, la Chôra est alors la «mère» de tout. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que, comme nous le dit Proclus, la chôra soit, en fait, la déesse Rhéa. En hommage à la littérature révélatrice antique, comme les Oracles chaldaïques, Homère et Hésiode, Proclus fournit une élucidation non seulement philosophique, mais aussi théologique, de la chôra. À la différence de Platon, il théologise la Physique. (shrink)

The idea that mythos and logos are incompatible, and that truth is a product of scientific and dialectical thinking, was certainly disproven by later Platonic philosophers. Deploying the works of Hesiod and Homer, Homeric Hymns and other such literature, they considered myth a valuable and significant augment to philosophical discourse. Plato’s denigration of myth gave his followers an incentive to read myth as allegory. The Stoics and first-century philosophers such as Philo, treated allegory as a legitimate interpretive strategy. The Middle (...) Platonists incorporated myth, for example, deifying the Monad and Dyad, as did 2nd century Platonists. Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris, for example, equates Isis and Osiris with form and matter: the god sows in matter logoi from himself. Porphyry’s allegorizing of Plato’s Cave of the Nymphs is another example. Plotinus is a strong influence on how the late Neoplatonists regarded myth. This paper argues that these philosophers’ use of allegory prepared the way for the Neoplatonists treatment of myth as inspired symbolism. Proclus and Syrianus, as reported by Hermias, did something more extreme by using mythology to construct inspired symbolic argument. Mythos becomes another type of logos, a vehicle for representing the invisible world of being, another kind of truth that can even serve a function in anagogic ascent. (shrink)

Soul is the self-moving, self-constituting entity linking the transcendent with the immanent. Proclus distinguishes many types of souls. This chapter concentrates on the World Soul and the rational human soul. The World Soul infuses the sensible, temporal, divided, and material cosmos with unity and Forms ultimately deriving from the One and Intelligible Being, in a manner reminiscent of human phantasia. The mathematical psychology of the Timaeus is explained as referring to the Soul’s activity, rather than its essence. Concerning the human (...) soul, with its eternal essence and temporal activity, the authors concentrate on the function and nature of the many ‘vehicles’, assisting the soul’s descent and, in a different manner, its ascent. (shrink)

Many students have experienced the death of a loved one, which increases their risk of grief and mental health problems. Formal and social support can contribute to better coping skills and personal growth in bereaved students. The purpose of this study was to examine the support that students received or wanted to receive and its relation to students’ mental health. We also looked at students’ needs when receiving support and barriers in seeking formal and social support. Participants completed an online (...) survey consisting of questions about their sociodemographic characteristics, the support they received or wanted to receive, and support needs and barriers in seeking support. The survey also included three scales assessing grief, mental health distress, and personal growth. First, we analyzed the data descriptively. Next, we used MANCOVA to examine whether students who did or did not receive or wanted more support differed in terms of their grief, mental health distress, or personal growth. About 30% of students needed more support and experienced more grief and mental health distress than students who had their support needs met. Students who received support experienced more personal growth and grief than students who did not receive support. Students indicated a need for feeling acknowledged and safe. Feeling like a burden to others and perceiving their problems as not serious enough to warrant support were common barriers to seeking support. Our results indicate that support should be provided actively to students after the death of a loved one, and support being available on an ongoing basis. (shrink)

The anvartha-saṃjñā compound associates two contradictory terms: anvartha, which means “[used] in conformity with his [etymological/first] meaning”, and saṃjñā which implies the idea of a convention; it therefore appears to be quite intriguing. The question is: is it relevant to focus on this contradiction or is it only a false problem? The aim of this paper is to answer the above question and this implies to grasp somewhat better the use of this notion by the Pāṇinian grammarians. To do so, (...) the author has studied the main texts of the Pāṇinian tradition, having in mind the following questions: did the Pāṇinian grammarians deal with this notion and, if so, in what terms? Did they perceive the contradiction raised by the association of the terms anvartha and samjñā? The study will show that this contradiction is only a false problem: according to the Pāṇinian grammarians quoted above, even when a saṃjñā is provided with an etymological/first meaning and its bearer (or one of its properties) is partly described by this meaning, this saṃjñā belongs, above all, to the domain of convention. (shrink)

Après avoir présenté l’institution récente de la kafâla, qui fut légalisée en Algérie en 1984 et au Maroc en 1993 en faveur des enfants abandonnés et en substitution au modèle prohibé de l’adoption, l’article propose une analyse des données recueillies lors d’une enquête ethnographique menée de 2005 à 2009. Elle révèle que l’enfant illégitime encourt davantage le risque d’être abandonné à la naissance s’il est de sexe masculin. En revanche, s’il est de sexe féminin, il bénéficie de plus de chances (...) de faire l’objet d’un don provisoire, direct et négocié, et surtout d’être adopté ou recueilli en kafâla suite à son abandon en institution. (shrink)

Après avoir présenté l’institution récente de la kafâla, qui fut légalisée en Algérie en 1984 et au Maroc en 1993 en faveur des enfants abandonnés et en substitution au modèle prohibé de l’adoption, l’article propose une analyse des données recueillies lors d’une enquête ethnographique menée de 2005 à 2009. Elle révèle que l’enfant illégitime encourt davantage le risque d’être abandonné à la naissance s’il est de sexe masculin. En revanche, s’il est de sexe féminin, il bénéficie de plus de chances (...) de faire l’objet d’un don provisoire, direct et négocié, et surtout d’être adopté ou recueilli en kafâla suite à son abandon en institution. (shrink)

Un colloque international et pluridisciplinaire a rassemblé les 4, 5 et 6 octobre 2006 au Collège de France des anthropologues, juristes, historiens et philosophes spécialistes des questions de parenté. La rencontre, inscrite dans la continuité d’un précédent colloque consacré à l’alliance, portait cette fois sur « L’argument de la filiation, aux fondements des sociétés européennes et méditerranéennes anciennes et actuelles ». L’objectif premier des organisateurs était de construire un objet...

Although beef and dairy production in Alberta, Canada, enjoys strong public support, there are enduring public concerns, including farm animal welfare. Evolving codes of practice and animal care councils prescribe changes and improvements to many areas of farm management, and may be seen by farmers as an appropriate response to public animal welfare concerns. However, codes of practice do not address every animal welfare concern, and new concerns can arise over time. Drawing on social practice theory and in-depth field research (...) with 36 cattle and dairy farmers, this paper explores the materials, competencies, and meanings of four animal husbandry practices: branding, dehorning, weaning, and on-farm handling and moving. Findings show that branding and dehorning are evolving slowly with attention to pain management, but remain firmly rooted in ranching tradition and communities of practice. Weaning and animal handling practices are evolving more quickly with attention to changing materials, attitudes, and values that are more prevalent within producer communities. (shrink)

Background: Autonomy is a central concept in both bioethics and rehabilitation. Bioethics has emphasized autonomy as self-governance and its application in treatment decision-making. In addition to discussing decisional autonomy, rehabilitation also focuses on autonomy as functional independence. In practice, responding to patients with diminished autonomy is an important component of rehabilitation care, but also gives rise to tensions and challenges. Our objective was to better understand the complex and distinctive ways that autonomy is understood and upheld in the context of (...) rehabilitation care by reviewing how autonomy is discussed in the rehabilitation literature. Methods: We conducted a scoping review addressing issues of autonomy in the context of mental and physical rehabilitation. Our process followed three sequential steps. We extracted and analyzed bibliometric information. We then examined how autonomy was defined and conceptualized. Finally, we examined how the articles discussed the roles of rehabilitation health professionals in responding to patient autonomy. Findings: The articles include 16 empirical reports, 17 case studies and 30 theoretical papers. The most common conceptual accounts of autonomy drew upon principlism, rights-based and legal analyses, and relational/social approaches. We identified four broad approaches for responding to patient autonomy: supporting, promoting, respecting and advocating. Conclusion: This review helps clarify some of the ambiguities and conceptual distinctions underlying discussions and practices related to autonomy in rehabilitation. It also draws attention to a wide range of activities that health professionals can undertake with the goal of supporting, promoting, respecting and advocating for patient autonomy in rehabilitation care. (shrink)

Background: Autonomy is a central concept in both bioethics and rehabilitation. Bioethics has emphasized autonomy as self-governance and its application in treatment decision-making. In addition to discussing decisional autonomy, rehabilitation also focuses on autonomy as functional independence. In practice, responding to patients with diminished autonomy is an important component of rehabilitation care, but also gives rise to tensions and challenges. Our objective was to better understand the complex and distinctive ways that autonomy is understood and upheld in the context of (...) rehabilitation care by reviewing how autonomy is discussed in the rehabilitation literature. Methods: We conducted a scoping review addressing issues of autonomy in the context of mental and physical rehabilitation. Our process followed three sequential steps. We extracted and analyzed bibliometric information. We then examined how autonomy was defined and conceptualized. Finally, we examined how the articles discussed the roles of rehabilitation health professionals in responding to patient autonomy. Findings: The articles include 16 empirical reports, 17 case studies and 30 theoretical papers. The most common conceptual accounts of autonomy drew upon principlism, rights-based and legal analyses, and relational/social approaches. We identified four broad approaches for responding to patient autonomy: supporting, promoting, respecting and advocating. Conclusion: This review helps clarify some of the ambiguities and conceptual distinctions underlying discussions and practices related to autonomy in rehabilitation. It also draws attention to a wide range of activities that health professionals can undertake with the goal of supporting, promoting, respecting and advocating for patient autonomy in rehabilitation care. (shrink)

This paper draws on an in-depth phenomenological analysis of some interviews taken from volunteers, inviting them to reflect on their lived experiences of meaningfulness in the context of volunteering and citizenship. It is found that while some testimonies reinforce the standard conceptions of meaningfulness, other testimonies vary from it. The main challenge of this contribution consists in phenomenologically describing this alternative picture of meaningfulness, depicted as the event of witnessing. In a final part, the authors consider how volunteering is at (...) times especially prone to further experiences of witnessing. (shrink)

The thymus is a unique primary lymphoid organ that supports the production of self‐tolerant T‐cells essential for adaptive immunity. Intrathymic microenvironments are microanatomically compartmentalised, forming defined cortical, and medullary regions each differentially supporting critical aspects of thymus‐dependent T‐cell maturation. Importantly, the specific functional properties of thymic cortical and medullary compartments are defined by highly specialised thymic epithelial cells (TEC). For example, in the medulla heterogenous medullary TEC (mTEC) contribute to the enforcement of central tolerance by supporting deletion of autoreactive T‐cell (...) clones, thereby counterbalancing the potential for random T‐cell receptor generation to contribute to autoimmune disease. Recent advances have further shed light on the pathways and mechanisms that control heterogeneous mTEC development and how differential mTEC functionality contributes to control self‐tolerant T‐cell development. Here we discuss recent findings in relation to mTEC development and highlight examples of how mTEC diversity contribute to thymus medulla function. (shrink)

Adaptive phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to cope with environmental variability, and yet, despite its adaptive significance, phenotypic plasticity is neither ubiquitous nor infinite. In this review, we merge developmental and population genetic perspectives to explore costs and limits on the evolution of plasticity. Specifically, we focus on the role of modularity in developmental genetic networks as a mechanism underlying phenotypic plasticity, and apply to it lessons learned from population genetic theory on the interplay between relaxed selection and mutation accumulation. We (...) argue that the environmental specificity of gene expression and the associated reduction in pleiotropic constraints drive a fundamental tradeoff between the range of plasticity that can be accommodated and mutation accumulation in alternative developmental networks. This tradeoff has broad implications for understanding the origin and maintenance of plasticity and may contribute to a better understanding of the role of plasticity in the origin, diversification, and loss of phenotypic diversity. (shrink)

Omniprésent dans les médias, le terme transhumanisme nécessite un éclaircissement académique. En effet, il n'existe pas un, mais des transhumanismes. La parole est ici donnée à des penseurs de diverses disciplines, plus ou moins ouverts à ce courant d'idées parfois taxé d'idéologie, voire de menace pour l'Humanité. Ces craintes sont-elles fondées? Quelles sont les origines de ce mouvement de pensée? Quels en sont les différentes ramifications? Quelles en sont les réalisations, notamment dans le domaine médical? Un encadrement éthique et/ou juridique (...) de ces pratiques est- elle nécessaire? De nouveaux droits fondamentaux méritaient-ils d'être reconnus? La parole est ici donnée tant aux militants transhumanistes qu'aux penseurs critiques afin de croiser leurs regards"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This article seeks to explain the variable implementation of gender mainstreaming as a `policy frame' over time and across various international organisations (I.O.s). In the years since the U.N. Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing (1995),mainstreaming has been endorsed and adopted by a wide range of international organisations, and we compare the adoption and implementation of mainstreaming in four specific I.O.s: the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union. (...) The rhetorical acceptance of mainstreaming by various international organisations, however, obscures considerable variation in both the timing and the nature of the mainstreaming process within and among organisations. This variation, in turn, can be explained in terms of the categories of political opportunity, mobilising structures and strategic framing, which have been put forward by social movement theorists. (shrink)

This paper examines Irish campaigns for condom access in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, activists campaigned against a law which would not allow condoms to be sold from ordinary commercial spaces or vending machines, and restricted sale to young people. Advancing a conception of ‘transformative illegality’, we show that illegal action was fundamental to the eventual legalisation of commercial condom sale. However, rather than foregrounding illegal condom sale as a mode of spectacular direct action, we (...) show that tactics of illegal sale in the 1990s built on 20 years of everyday illegal sale within the Irish family planning movement. Everyday illegal sale was a long-term world-making practice, which gradually transformed condoms’ legal meanings, eventually enabling new forms of provocative and irreverent protest. Condoms ‘became legal’ when the state recognised modes of condom sale, gradually built up over many years and publicised in direct action and in the courts. (shrink)

"Literature and the Right to Marriage," which bears the same title as the special issue that it introduces, takes up the challenge of the claim that marriage is a universal right. Framing the questions that traverse the five essays in the collection with a close reading of the sections on marriage from Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the authors argue that if marriage can be considered a right, this right both guarantees access to and is founded upon each (...) partner's vow to abide by his or her vows to the other. Hegel's text is important because it underscores the linguistic dimension of the marriage ceremony; and it thus helps to show that, if the right to marriage were universal, it must be understood as the right to an irreplaceable kind of ritual speech. Moreover, this text is remarkably modern in its emphasis upon love as the condition of rightful marriage. Hegel considered the exchange of marriage vows to be a political event at which love becomes ethical , and ethics becomes political ; and thus also the point at which the model for "ethical love" becomes the verbally solemnized love between a man and a woman rather than the priestly love of the neighbor. Marriage, for Hegel, is always a turning point, both in the lives of the couple and in the history of the state. But this means that the importance of any marriage cannot be measured in terms of a norm; it can only be measured in terms of the amorous situation that precedes the event of marriage. Hegel's analyses are indispensable for grasping the stakes of the essays collected in this special issue and for addressing contemporary questions about which couples have the right to marry and what marriage becomes when those who would marry already have shared long and complex lives together. (shrink)

"Literature and the Right to Marriage," which bears the same title as the special issue that it introduces, takes up the challenge of the claim that marriage is a universal right. Framing the questions that traverse the five essays in the collection with a close reading of the sections on marriage from Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the authors argue that if marriage can be considered a right, this right both guarantees access to and is founded upon each (...) partner's vow to abide by his or her vows to the other. Hegel's text is important because it underscores the linguistic dimension of the marriage ceremony; and it thus helps to show that, if the right to marriage were universal, it must be understood as the right to an irreplaceable kind of ritual speech. Moreover, this text is remarkably modern in its emphasis upon love as the condition of rightful marriage. Hegel considered the exchange of marriage vows to be a political event at which love becomes ethical (distinct from seduction), and ethics becomes political (distinct from morality and inseparable from civil society and the state); and thus also the point at which the model for "ethical love" becomes the verbally solemnized love between a man and a woman rather than the priestly love of the neighbor. Marriage, for Hegel, is always a turning point, both in the lives of the couple and in the history of the state. But this means that the importance of any marriage cannot be measured in terms of a norm; it can only be measured in terms of the amorous situation that precedes the event of marriage. Hegel's analyses are indispensable for grasping the stakes of the essays collected in this special issue and for addressing contemporary questions about which couples have the right to marry and what marriage becomes when those who would marry already have shared long and complex lives together. (shrink)

Figurative drawing is a skill that takes time to learn, and it evolves during different childhood phases that begin with scribbling and end with representational drawing. Between these phases, it is difficult to assess when and how children demonstrate intentions and representativeness in their drawings. The marks produced are increasingly goal-oriented and efficient as the child’s skills progress from scribbles to figurative drawings. Pre-figurative activities provide an opportunity to focus on drawing processes. We applied fourteen metrics to two different datasets (...) (_N_ = 65 and _N_ = 344) to better understand the intentional and representational processes behind drawing, and combined these metrics using principal component analysis (PCA) in different biologically significant dimensions. Three dimensions were identified: efficiency based on spatial metrics, diversity with color metrics, and temporal sequentiality. The metrics at play in each dimension are similar for both datasets, and PCA explains 77% of the variance in both datasets. Gender had no effect, but age influenced all three dimensions differently. These analyses for instance differentiate scribbles by children from those drawn by adults. The three dimensions highlighted by this study provide a better understanding of the emergence of intentions and representativeness in drawings. We discussed the perspectives of such findings in comparative psychology and evolutionary anthropology. (shrink)

After reviewing the literature on current knowledge about consciousness in humans, we present a state-of-the art discussion on consciousness and related key concepts in animals. Obviously much fewer publications are available on non-human species than on humans, most of them relating to laboratory or wild animal species, and only few to livestock species. Human consciousness is by definition subjective and private. Animal consciousness is usually assessed through behavioural performance. Behaviour involves a wide array of cognitive processes that have to be (...) assessed separately using specific experimental protocols. Accordingly, several processes indicative of the presence of consciousness are discussed: perception and cognition, awareness of the bodily-self, self-related knowledge of the environment (including social environment). When available, specific examples are given in livestock species. Next, we review the existing evidence regarding neuronal correlates of consciousness, and emphasize the difficulty of linking aspects of consciousness to specific neural structures across the phyla because high-level cognitive abilities may have evolved independently along evolution. Several mammalian brain structures (cortex and midbrain) are involved in the manifestations of consciousness, while the equivalent functional structures for birds and fishes would likely be the pallium/tectum and midbrain. Caution is required before excluding consciousness in species not having the same brain structures as the mammalian ones as different neural architectures may mediate comparable processes. Finally, specific neurophysiological mechanisms appear to be strongly linked to the emergence of consciousness, namely neural synchrony and neural feedback. Considering the limited amount of data available and the few animal species studied so far, we conclude that different manifestations of consciousness can be observed in animals but that further refinement is still needed to characterize their level and content in each species. Further research is required to clarify these issues, especially in livestock species. (shrink)