Gut microbiome plays a significant role in defining the health status of subjects, and recent studies highlight the importance of using time series strategies to analyse microbiome dynamics. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model for microbiota longitudinal data, based on Dirichlet distribution with time-varying parameters, that take into account the compositional paradigm and consider principal balances. The proposed model can be effective for predicting the future dynamics of a microbial community in the short term and for analysing the (...) microbial interactions using the value of the estimated parameters. The usefulness of the proposed model is illustrated with six different datasets, and a comparison study with four alternative models is provided. (shrink)

Geannoteerde briefwisseling van de twee geleerden over het vraagstuk van de evolutie.

This paper responds to the issues raised by D. Chalmers by offering a research direction which is quite radical because of the way in which methodological principles are linked to scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I use here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thereby placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of Phenomenology. My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special (...) Issues can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools for the development of a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I motivate my choice by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness at the light of Chalmer’s hard problem. Next, I outline the phenomenological strategy. Finally I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and consequences of this strategy. (shrink)

_The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism_ develops a systematic reconstruction of the post-Marxist projects of the Budapest School. It charts the evolution of these thinkers from their beginnings in the ‘renaissance of Marxism’ through to their contemporary critical theories of modernity.

Recent articles in Religious Studies have underscored the questions of whether Buddhism presents any empirical doctrines, and whether, if it does, such doctrines are false or vacuous. In what follows I want to sketch an interpretation of Buddhism according to which it does not offer doctrines which are empirically false, on the one hand, or trivially true on the other. In doing so I take my cue from an earlier, and by now classic, paper by H. H. Price. For the (...) exposition of Buddhism I take the Pali Nikāyas, the single most significant collection of texts in the Buddhist tradition. The particular doctrine which is the focus of discussion here is the kammavāda or ‘karma view’ of early Indian Buddhism, for it is the focus of much of the recent literature cited above and a doctrine which some have thought amenable to statement in empirical terms. (shrink)

Two problems involving Thucydides and medicine have attracted intense treatment by classical scholars and medical men working separately or in combination. They are, first, the nature of the Athenian Plague which Thucydides describes and, second, the possibility of his having been influenced by the doctrines and outlook of Hippocrates and his followers. It is the purpose of the present paper to reconsider both these problems, to indicate some false assumptions made in the methodology of previous attempts to identify the Plague, (...) and to suggest a somewhat radical revaluation of Thucydides' approach to medical matters compared with that of Hippocrates. (shrink)

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

First published in 1818, The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion, in an attempt to account for the world in all its significant aspects. It gives a unique and influential account of what is and is not of value in existence, the striving and pain of the human condition and the possibility of (...) deliverance from it. This new translation of the first volume of what later became a two-volume work reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names and bibliography, and succinct editorial notes, including notes on the revisions of the text which Schopenhauer made in 1844 and 1859. (shrink)

An exposition of Karl Marx’s argument in the Grundrisse for the logical development of money, this essay is divided into three parts. Since Marx is concerned to distinguish himself and his method from that of the seventeenth century political economists, I begin my paper with a brief reflection on “the scientifically correct method” or the “theoretical method” (Grundrisse 101 and 102). The second part of this paper considers how Marx justifies beginning his reflection with the concept of production in general. (...) To understand the importance that Marx attributes to production, one must also appreciate the way in which distribution, exchange, and consumption belong to the sphere of production. In the remaining pages of this section of my paper, then, I attempt to reconstruct Marx’s argument for the way in which these concepts (distribution, exchange, and consumption) are to be understood in relation to the sphere of production. (shrink)

Bertrand de Jouvenel was a renowned French philosopher and political economist. In Sovereignty he turned his attention to the relationship between the distribution of power and the creation of an ethical society. More specifically, he was concerned with the potential confusion of the body politic resulting from the development of increasingly dynamic and nebulous social conditions. The text is written in an exploratory fashion, reflecting the authorial perception of an ambiguity in modern political structures. This translated Cambridge edition, which was (...) first published in 1957, was derived from a 1955 French original. It constitutes an important contribution to post-war political theory that will remain of value to anyone with an interest in questions relating to political structures and the nature of authority. (shrink)

Task unrelated thought (TUT) refers to thought directed away from the current situation, for example a daydream. Three experiments were conducted on healthy participants, with two broad aims. First, to contrast distributed and encapsulated views of cognition by comparing the encoding of categorical and random lists of words (Experiments One and Two). Second, to examine the consequences of experiencing TUT during study on the subsequent retrieval of information (Experiments One, Two, and Three). Experiments One and Two demonstrated lower levels of (...) TUT and higher levels of word-fragment completion whilst encoding categorical relative to random stimuli, supporting the role of a distributed resource in the maintenance of TUT. In addition the results of all three experiments suggested that experiencing TUT during study had a measurable effect on subsequent retrieval. TUT was associated with increased frequency of false alarms at retrieval (Experiment One). In the subsequent experiments TUT was associated with no advantage to retrieval based on recollection, by manipulating instructions at encoding (Experiment Two), and/or at retrieval (Experiment Three). The implications of the results of all three experiments are discussed in terms of recent accounts of memory retrieval and conscious awareness. (shrink)

Le névrosé est un homme qui demeure infantile et s'enferme dans un refuge imaginaire. Sans courage, il est prisonnier des angoisses primitives. A partir d'une compréhension de la relation fondamentale entre l'angoisse et le courage s'éclaire la valeur proprement humaine de l'amour humain, de la rencontre, de la confrontation et de la liaison entre le Moi et le Toi comme une existence sous la forme du Nous - la „liebende Wirheit” dont parle Binswanger. Le mysterium tremendum de l'amour personnel pour (...) un ‘étranger’ - qui n'est donc n i la mère n i le père - est un risque existentiel par essence, c'est le franchissement du seuil vers une forme nouvelle de l'existence du Dasein. C'est la raison pour laquelle la route vers le Toi passe par l'angoisse et que l'engagement dans cette voie présuppose un Moi libre, courageux et responsable. C'est ce que nous apprend déjà le dicton : „Qui veut épouser la fille du roi doit d'abord supporter le tremblement de l'angoisse”. Le courage qui est ici nécessaire s'accomplit dans la liberté heureuse de ce qu'on a appelé le „discours-révélant” -par lequel le „langage-du-désir” de notre inconscience originelle est assumé et qu'il accomplit sa signification. (shrink)

This appraisal of two of the most fundamental terms in the moral language of Thomas Aquinas draws on the contemporary moral distinction between the goodness of a person and the rightness of a person's living. Keenan thus finds that Aquinas's earlier writings do not permit the possibility of such a distinction. But in his mature works, specifically the Summa Theologiae, Thomas describes the human act of moral intentionality, and even the virtues in a way analogous to our use of the (...) term moral rightness. To Thomas, only the virtue of charity expresses moral goodness. And, although Thomas describes vices and sin as wrong conduct, he never really develops a description for moral badness.Keenan compels us to carefully examine Thomas's central moral concepts and to measure them against contemporary standards for meaning and correctness. As a result, any student of Thomas will find here a forceful argument that his notion of the good is considerably different from ours. Similarly, ethicists and moral theologians will find in the Thomas presented here a consistent-virtue ethicist concerned with descriptions for right living. Any student of theology will also find here a Thomas whose critical and concrete thinking enabled him to develop and even abandon earlier positions as his comprehension of the Good evolved. This analysis prompts a re-examination of our own concepts. Measuring Thomas's standards against our own, Keenan obliges us to ask whether we sufficiently understand rightness and moral intentionality. He also asks whether we correctly describe what it means to will or to desire something. He further questions whether we have surrendered our understanding of the virtues to the voluntarism and subjectivism which Thomas relentlessly critiqued. This historically sophisticated reading of the Summa Thologiae both allows Thomas to speak again as he once did, and affords us the chance to evaluate the way we describe ourselves and one another as being good and living rightly. (shrink)

Observations with respect to the relationship between symptoms and diseases can seriously be biased by selection phenomena. This selection may occur from the general population, via consultation behavior, diagnostic and therapeutic activities of the general practitioner, and by referral.Relationships may be suggested and reproduced even if they do not exist in unselected populations, as a product of diagnostic routines. Correction for selection bias can only be achieved by choosing proper comparison groups. While this can be done in a general practice (...) setting, this is almost impossible after referral, as is demonstrated in this paper. Surprisingly, the most unbiased estimation of the relationship between symptoms and diseases after referral can be made from patient groups that are referred for reason unrelated to the disease under study. (shrink)