This is the first book to systemize all levels of communicative behavior of phages. Phages represent the most diverse inhabitants on this planet. Until today they are completely underestimated in their number, skills and competences and still remain the dark matter of biology. Phages have serious effects on global energy and nutrient cycles. Phages actively compete for host. They can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate available information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These diverse competences show (...) us that this capacity to evaluate information is possible owing to communication processes within phages, between the same, related and different phage species, and between phages and non-phage organisms. This is crucial in coordinating infection strategies and recombination in phage genomes. In 22 chapters, expert contributors review current research into the varying forms of phage biocommunication and Phagetherapy. Biocommunication of Phages aims to assess the current state of research, to orient further investigations on how phages communicate with each other to coordinate their behavioral patterns, and to inspire further investigation of the role of non-phage viruses in these highly dynamic interactional networks. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1979.

This is the first coherent description of all levels of communication of ciliates. Ciliates are highly sensitive organisms that actively compete for environmental resources. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realise the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These highly diverse competences show us that this is (...) possible owing to sign-mediated communication processes within ciliates, between the same, related and different ciliate species, and between ciliates and non-ciliate organisms. This is crucial in coordinating growth and development, shape and dynamics. This book further serves as a learning tool for research aspects in biocommunication in ciliates. It will guide scientists in further investigations on ciliate behavior, how they mediate signaling processes between themselves and the environment. (shrink)

Fungi are sessile, highly sensitive organisms that actively compete for environmental resources both above and below the ground. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realise the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These highly diverse competences show us that this is possible owing to sign-mediated communication processes (...) within fungal cells, between the same, related and different fungal species, and between fungi and non-fungal organisms. Intraorganismic communication involves sign-mediated interactions within cells and between cells. This is crucial in coordinating growth and development, shape and dynamics. Such communication must function both on the local level and between widely separated mycelium parts. This allows fungi to coordinate appropriate response behaviors in a differentiated manner to their current developmental status and physiological influences. (shrink)

Prolonged solitary confinement has become a widespread and standard practice in U.S. prisons—even though it consistently drives healthy prisoners insane, makes the mentally ill sicker, and, according to the testimony of prisoners, threatens to reduce life to a living death. In this profoundly important and original book, Lisa Guenther examines the death-in-life experience of solitary confinement in America from the early nineteenth century to today’s supermax prisons. Documenting how solitary confinement undermines prisoners’ sense of identity and their ability to understand (...) the world, Guenther demonstrates the real effects of forcibly isolating a person for weeks, months, or years. -/- Drawing on the testimony of prisoners and the work of philosophers and social activists from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, the author defines solitary confinement as a kind of social death. It argues that isolation exposes the relational structure of being by showing what happens when that structure is abused—when prisoners are deprived of the concrete relations with others on which our existence as sense-making creatures depends. Solitary confinement is beyond a form of racial or political violence; it is an assault on being. (shrink)

: Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's account of natality, Guenther argues that Martin Heidegger overlooks the distinct ontological and ethical significance of birth as a limit that orients one toward an other who resists appropriation, even while handing down a heritage of possibilities that one can—and must—make one's own. Guenther calls this structure of natality Being-from-others, modifying Heidegger's language of inheritance to suggest an ethical understanding of existence as the gift of the other.

All the conserved detailed results of evolution stored in DNA must be read, transcribed, and translated via an RNAmediated process. This is required for the development and growth of each individual cell. Thus, all known living organisms fundamentally depend on these RNA-mediated processes. In most cases, they are interconnected with other RNAs and their associated protein complexes and function in a strictly coordinated hierarchy of temporal and spatial steps (i.e., an RNA network). Clearly, all cellular life as we know it (...) could not function without these key agents of DNA replication, namely rRNA, tRNA, and mRNA. Thus, any definition of life that lacks RNA functions and their networks misses an essential requirement for RNA agents that inherently regulate and coordinate (communicate to) cells, tissues, organs, and organisms. The precellular evolution of RNAs occurred at the core of the emergence of cellular life and the question remained of how both precellular and cellular levels are interconnected historically and functionally. RNA-networks andRNA-communication can interconnect these levels.With the reemergence of virology in evolution, it became clear that communicating viruses and subviral infectious genetic parasites are bridging these two levels by invading, integrating, coadapting, exapting, and recombining constituent parts in host genomes for cellular requirements in gene regulation and coordination aims. Therefore, a 21st century understanding of life is of an inherently social process based on communicating RNA networks, in which viruses and cells continuously interact. (shrink)

What is the meaning of critique for critical phenomenology? Building on Gayle Salamon’s engagement with this question in the inaugural issue of Puncta: A Journal for Critical Phenomenology (2018), I will propose a six-fold account of critique as: 1) the art of asking questions, moved by crisis; 2) a transcendental inquiry into the conditions of possibility for meaningful experience; 3) a quasi-transcendental, historically-grounded study of particular lifeworlds; 4) a (situated and interested) analysis of power; 5) the problematization of basic concepts (...) and methods; and 6) a praxis of freedom that seeks not only to interpret the meaning of lived experience, but also to change the conditions under which horizons of possibility for meaning, action, and relationship are wrongfully limited or foreclosed. While the first two dimensions of critique are alive and well in classical phenomenology, the others help to articulate what is distinctive about critical phenomenology. (shrink)

The Gift of the Other brings together a philosophical analysis of time, embodiment, and ethical responsibility with a feminist critique of the way women’s reproductive capacity has been theorized and represented in Western culture. Author Lisa Guenther develops the ethical and temporal implications of understanding birth as the gift of the Other, a gift which makes existence possible, and already orients this existence toward a radical responsibility for Others. Through an engagement with the work of Levinas, Beauvoir, Arendt, Irigaray, and (...) Kristeva, the author outlines an ethics of maternity based on the givenness of existence and a feminist politics of motherhood which critiques the exploitation of maternal generosity. (shrink)

Using Tõnu Viik's statement of the relationship between philosophy and culture as a framework, after discussing both nature and world, I investigate how culture affects the ways human beings live in nature and the world, then the implications of living in culture for philosophy and human knowledge, and finally the philosophy of culture, what it is or might be and its place as a focal point for a philosophical understanding of human life and activity.

Plants are sessile, highly sensitive organisms that actively compete for environmental resources both above and below the ground. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realise the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These highly diverse competences are made possible by parallel sign(alling)-mediated communication processes within the plant (...) body (intraorganismic), between the same, related and different species (interorganismic), and between plants and non-plant organisms (transorganismic). Intraorganismic communication involves sign-mediated interactions within cells (intracellular) and between cells (intercellular). This is crucial in coordinating growth and development, shape and dynamics. Such communication must function both on the local level and between widely separated plant parts. This allows plants to coordinate appropriate response behaviours in a differentiated manner, depending on their current developmental status and physiological influences. Lastly, this volume documents how plant ecosphere inhabitants communicate with each other to coordinate their behavioural patterns, as well as the role of viruses in these highly dynamic interactional networks. (shrink)

Within the last decade, thousands of studies have described communication processes in and between organisms. Pragmatic philosophy of biology views communication processes as rule-governed sign-mediated interactions (rsi's). As sign-using individuals exhibit a relationship to following or not-following these rules, the rsi's of living individuals dier fundamentally from cause-and-effect reactions with and between non-living matter, which exclusively underlie natural laws. Umwelt thus becomes a term in investigating physiological influences on organisms that are not components of rsi's. Mitwelt is a term for (...) the investigation of all rsi's of organisms. Living organisms are never solus ipse subjects of semioses, but share common sets of rules and signs. Life depends decisively on symbiotic communities. Serial Endosymbiotic Theory proved that the evolution of the eukaryotic super-kingdom was a merger of anchestral bacteria. The integration of bacterial genomes into eukaryotic genomes was also a step from analog to symbolic genetic codes. Now we know, that so-called ‘junk DNA’ has higher order regulatory functions on genome architecture and protein coding DNA plays only the role of a structural vocabulary. (shrink)

Shame is notoriously ambivalent. On one hand, it operates as a mechanism of normalization and social exclusion, installing or reinforcing patterns of silence and invisibility; on the other hand, the capacity for shame may be indispensible for ethical life insofar as it attests to the subject’s constitutive relationality and its openness to the provocation of others. Sartre, Levinas and Beauvoir each offer phenomenological analyses of shame in which its basic structure emerges as a feeling of being exposed to others and (...) bound to one’s own identity. For Sartre, shame is an ontological provocation, constitutive of subjectivity as a being-for-Others. For Levinas, ontological shame takes the form of an inability to escape one’s own relation to being; this predicament is altered by the ethical provocation of an Other who puts my freedom in question and commands me to justify myself. For Beauvoir, shame is an effect of oppression, both for the woman whose embodied existence is marked as shameful, and for the beneficiary of colonial domination who feels ashamed of her privilege. For each thinker, shame articulates the temporality of social life in both its promise and its danger. (shrink)

Whereas telomeres protect terminal ends of linear chromosomes, telomerases identify natural chromosome ends, which differ from broken DNA and replicate telomeres. Although telomeres play a crucial role in the linear chromosome organization of eukaryotic cells, their molecular syntax most probably descended from an ancient retroviral competence. This indicates an early retroviral colonization of large double-stranded DNA viruses, which are putative ancestors of the eukaryotic nucleus. This contribution demonstrates an advantage of the biosemiotic approach towards our evolutionary understanding of telomeres, telomerases, (...) other reverse transcriptases and mobile elements. Their role in genetic/genomic content organization and maintenance is no longer viewed as an object of randomly derived alterations (mutations) but as a highly sophisticated hierarchy of regulatory networks organized and coordinated by natural genome-editing competences of viruses. (shrink)

Steven Rose's book is essentially a plea for considering the variety and complexity of life and against simplistic reductions of human and animal behavioral phenomena to single genetic causes.

The Chorus representation is a sparse, similarity-preserving representation achieved by a feedforward neural network. Hence it is probably better suited for interpolation than for categorization. This commentary raises the question of how to combine categorization with interpolation, whether feedforward networks can be reasonable models for parts of the cerebral cortex, and whether people can perform more than one interpolation at a time.

We briefly review the long-standing ideas about the use of synchronicity in the brain, which rely on Donald Hebb's views on cell assemblies and synaptic plasticity. More recently the distinction among several timescales in the description of neural activity has become a focus of theoretical discussion. Phillips & Singer's target article is criticized mainly because it does not distinguish these timescales properly and hence does not really address the questions so intensely debated today.

: Emmanuel Levinas compares ethical responsibility to a maternal body who bears the Other in the same without assimilation. In explicating this trope, he refers to a biblical passage in which Moses is like a "wet nurse" bearing Others whom he has "neither conceived nor given birth to" (Num. 11:12). A close reading of this passage raises questions about ethics, maternity, and sexual difference, for both the concept of ethical substitution and the material practice of mothering.

Conventional methods of genetic engineering and more recent genome editing techniques focus on identifying genetic target sequences for manipulation. This is a result of historical concept of the gene which was also the main assumption of the ENCODE project designed to identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence. However, the theoretical core concept changed dramatically. The old concept of genetic sequences which can be assembled and manipulated like molecular bricks has problems in explaining the natural genome-editing competences of (...) viruses and RNA consortia that are able to insert or delete, combine and recombine genetic sequences more precisely than random-like into cellular host organisms according to adaptational needs or even generate sequences de novo. Increasing knowledge about natural genome editing questions the traditional narrative of mutations (error replications) as essential for generating genetic diversity and genetic content arrangements in biological systems. This may have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of artificial genome editing. (shrink)

In Remnants of Auschwitz , Giorgio Agamben argues that the hidden structure of subjectivity is shame. In shame, I am consigned to something that cannot be assumed, such that the very thing that makes me a subject also forces me to witness my own desubjectification. Agamben’s ontological account of shame is problematic insofar as it forecloses collective responsibility and collapses the distinction between shame and humiliation. By recontextualizing three of Agamben’s sources – Primo Levi, Robert Antelme and Maurice Blanchot – (...) I develop an alternative account of shame as the structure of intersubjectivity , and of a collective responsibility that is more fundamental than the subject itself. On this basis, I sketch the preliminary outline of a biopolitics of resistance rooted in the ethics of alterity. The intuition driving this approach is that life is never bare ; even in situations of extreme affliction there remains a relation to alterity which provides a starting point for resistance. (shrink)

The reconstruction of meaning in the aftermath of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is part of the grieving process but has to date been poorly understood. Earlier theorists including Freud, Bowlby and Kübler‐Ross provided a foundation for what occurs during this time using stage theories. More recent researchers, often using qualitative techniques, have provided a more complex and expanded view that enhances our knowledge of meaning reconstruction following infant loss. This overview of representative contemporary authors compares and contrasts them with (...) the longstanding models that are being supplanted within the emerging field of thanatology. Understanding parental reactions within this new framework can help healthcare professionals in dealing with those affected by SIDS and provide a more empathic and sensitive approach to individual differences. Parents’ own accounts of their post‐SIDS experience are consistent with these newer theories. Comprehending how parents cope and reconstruct their lives is an important element in providing appropriate psychological support services. (shrink)

Boards of directors affect corporate strategy and decision-making through monitoring of management and resource provision. Recently, an increasing number of studies have examined the relationships between board characteristics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). These studies have yielded inconsistent findings. This article therefore reports the results of a study applying meta-analytical techniques to a sample of 82 empirical studies to help clarify the relationships between board characteristics and CSR. Although prior research has tended to apply relatively simplistic models investigating the impact (...) of individual board characteristics independently and only directly, we adopt a more complex perspective to shed new light on the board characteristics–CSR nexus. Specifically, we use a meta-analytic path model that accounts for the potential interplay between board characteristics in determining CSR and tests whether the presence of a CSR committee plays a meditating role. Our findings suggest that board size, board independence, and female board representation are partially interrelated with each other and jointly influence CSR directly as well as indirectly via the presence of a CSR committee. In addition, we find that country-level institutional factors act as moderators and that the relationships differ with regard to the specific dimension of CSR (i.e., social, environmental, or aggregate). (shrink)

Psychiatrist Stuart Grassian has proposed the term “SHU syndrome” to name the cluster of cognitive, perceptual and affective symptoms that commonly arise for inmates held in the Special Housing Units (SHU) of supermax prisons. In this paper, I analyze the harm of solitary confinement from a phenomenological perspective by drawing on Husserl’s account of the essential relation between consciousness, the experience of an alter ego and the sense of a real, Objective world. While Husserl’s prioritization of transcendental subjectivity over transcendental (...) intersubjectivity underestimates the degree to which first-person consciousness is constitutively intertwined with the embodied consciousness of others, Husserl’s phenomenology nevertheless provides a fruitful starting-point for a philosophical engagement with the psychiatric research on solitary confinement. (shrink)

In Otherwise than Being, Levinas writes that the alterity of the Other escapes “le flair animal,” or the animal’s sense of smell. This paper puts pressure on the strong human-animal distinction that Levinas makes by considering the possibility that, while non-human animals may not respond to the alterity of the Other in the way that Levinas describes as responsibility, animal sensibility plays a key role in a relation to Others that Levinas does not discuss at length: friendship. This approach to (...) friendship addresses a gap in Levinas’ work between the absolute Other for whom I am responsible and the “brother” who is my political equal. (shrink)

The article discusses topics in the context of contemporary legal argumentation. It starts with a sketch of the development of topics from ancient times until the present day. Here the author focuses on the theory of the German legal philosopher Theodor Viehweg, which was most influential to legal argumentation in the 20th century. Then a modern concept of topics is introduced and finally the author discusses the role of topics in contemporary legal argumentation. In this part the distinction between topoi (...) in the weak sense (practically all argumentation schemes) and in the strong sense (specific legal topoi as listed by Gerhard Struck in 1971 is introduced. The author argues that Viehweg’s claim that topics plays an important role in legal argumentation is problematic, because topoi in the weak sense are certainly of high importance, but this is almost trivial. Topoi in the strong sense on the other hand are only of minor importance for legal practice. What characterises legal discourse much more is a set specific pragmatic discourse rules, discussed at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi and Max Weber held radically different views of liberal capitalism, but they also came to differ in significant respects with their brothers Michael Polanyi and Alfred Weber. The first section provides an overview of some critical moments in the history of liberal capitalism as perceived by some historical witnesses. The second treats the views of the Weber brothers on the world economy before 1914. The third deals with Max Weber's overlooked treatment of G. F. Knapp's once famous state (...) theory of money. The fourth turns to the circle of cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian intellectuals who passionately debated the future of liberal capitalism and almost all of whom became political refugees. (shrink)