Extant literature suggests a correlation between the thematic core of an adolescent’s personal account of depression and the trajectory of her personality development. This possible correlation has not been explored in a way that includes detailed qualitative analyses of reported experiences of adolescent depression. By discussing a single case design, this contribution illustrates and justifies an interpretative procedure that has been implemented to assist such an exploration. The paper focuses on the suitability of this approach for the investigation of all-encompassing (...) alterations of the experiential field in psychopathological conditions. I argue that this suitability is grounded in a phenomenological understanding of the explicative task in terms of a disclosure of the intentional constitution of the life-world of adolescent depression. The discussion begins with a contextualization of the single case design within a multilayered and methodologically mixed study. Against this background, I illustrate the steps of a ‘systematic of interpretation’ aimed at exposing meaning horizons. Touching on issues concerning the empirical validity of the approach, these meaning horizons are construed as objectively plausible frames of intelligibility of a subjectively particular form of experience. Drawing on a characterization of transcendental arguments, I discuss the relationship between the illustrated procedure and the investigational attitude that, according to Husserl, defines phenomenology as a properly philosophical endeavor. In this context, I eventually characterize the illustrated procedure as a crossover approach to human experiential life aligned with the tradition of phenomenological psychopathology. (shrink)

This article integrates John Dewey’s _Art as Experience_, Mikel Dufrenne’s _Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience_, and phenomenological interviews with museum visitors to answer what it means to be ‘moved by art’. The interviews point to intense affective and existential experiences, in which encounters with art can be genuinely transformative. We focus on Dufrenne’s notion of ‘adherent reflection’ and Dewey’s notions of ‘doing and undergoing’ to understand the intentional structure and dynamics of such experiences, concluding that being moved contains two merged forms (...) of intentionality: one overt aspect of perceptual intentionality directed at the work, and a covert affective intentionality directed back at oneself in one’s situated existence. These are operational simultaneously but can work in loops, one leading to an intensification of the other and vice versa. As such, these analyses emphasize the value of phenomenological interviews and advance the integration of phenomenological and pragmatist thinking in the context of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

The sequencing of the human genome has opened the way for using bioinformatics to identify sets of genes controlled by specific regulatory signals. Here, we review the unexpected diversity of DNA response elements mediating transcriptional regulation by estrogen receptors (ERs), which control the broad physiological effects of estrogens. Consensus palindromic estrogen response elements are found in only a few known estrogen target genes, whereas most responsive genes contain only low‐affinity half palindromes, which may also control regulation by other nuclear receptors. (...) ERs can also regulate gene expression in the absence of direct interaction with DNA, via protein–protein interactions with other transcription factors or by modulating the activity of upstream signaling components, thereby significantly expanding the repertoire of estrogen‐responsive genes. These diverse mechanisms of action must be taken into account in screening for potential estrogen‐responsive sequences in the genome or in regulatory regions of target genes identified by expression profiling. BioEssays 24:244–254, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/bies.10066. (shrink)

In recent years, supported by new scientific evidence, the conceptualization of cognitive reserve has been progressively enriched and now encompasses not only cognitive stimulating activities or educational level, but also lifestyle activities, such as leisure physical activity and socialization. In this context, there is increasing interest in understanding the role of psychological factors in brain health and cognitive functioning. In a previous study, we have found that these factors mediated the relationship between CR and self-reported cognitive functioning. In this study, (...) we have confirmed an association between two important constructs included in the psychological wellbeing and salutogenic models, “purpose in life” and “sense of coherence,” CR, as assessed using a questionnaire, and cognitive functioning, as evaluated using a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Results from 888 middle-aged healthy participants from the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative indicate that both sense of coherence and CR were positively associated with verbal memory, reasoning and attention, working memory, and global cognition. Moreover, the relation between CR and cognitive functioning in the different domains is partially mediated by SoC. When we controlled for brain integrity, introducing into the model neurofilament light chain measures, the mediator role of SoC was confirmed for reasoning and attention and global cognition. However, purpose in life was not associated with cognitive functioning. These results reveal the central role of the SoC construct, which mediates the association between classic CR estimates and cognitive functions, potentially representing a modifiable target for interventions that aim to promote brain health. (shrink)

The introduction of genes into plants encoding potent antibacterial proteins, derived from insects, may significantly augment the level of their resistance to bacterial disease. Using modern techniques, genes of choice can be introduced into plant tissue and this tissue can be manipulated to produce viable plants. The potato has been chosen as the model system, not only because of its plasticity of development, which allows for the relatively easy regeneration of whole plants from transformed tissue, but also because the potato (...) ranks among the top four plants in the world in terms of economic importance. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

This paper shows that in the philosophy of Sánchez Vázquez the basis for creative praxis is not innovation but the activity of practical consciousness, to which that Marxist philosopher describes as dialectical unity of the subjective and the objective. Furthermore, the paper argues that, in the sense of such unity and mutatis mutandi, creation has a place in non-practical human activity.

BackgroundRespect for confidentiality is important to safeguard the well-being of patients and ensure the confidence of society in the doctor-patient relationship. The aim of our study is to examine real situations in which there has been a breach of confidentiality, by means of direct observation in clinical practice.MethodsBy means of direct observation, our study examines real situations in which there has been a breach of confidentiality in a tertiary hospital. To observe and collect data on these situations, we recruited students (...) enrolled in the Medical Degree Program at the University of Cordoba. The observers recorded their entries on standardized templates during clinical internships in different departments: Internal Medicine; Gynecology and Obstetrics; Pediatrics; Emergency Medicine; General and Digestive Surgery; Maxillofacial Surgery; Plastic Surgery; Orthopedics and Traumatology; Digestive; Dermatology; Rheumatology; Mental Health; Nephrology; Pneumology; Neurology; and Ophthalmology.ResultsFollowing 7138 days and 33157 h of observation, we found an estimated Frequency Index of one breach per 62.5 h. As regards the typology of the observed breaches, the most frequent were related to the consultation and/or disclosure of clinical and/or personal data to medical personnel not involved in the patient’s clinical care, as well as people external to the hospital. As regards their severity, severe breaches were the most frequent, accounting for 46.7 % of all incidents. Most of the reported incidents were observed in public areas, such as corridors, elevators, the cafeteria, stairs, and locker rooms.ConclusionsIn addition to aspects related to hospital organization or infrastructure, we have shown that all healthcare personnel are involved in confidentiality breaches, especially physicians. While most are committed unintentionally, a non-negligible number are severe, repeated breaches, thus suggesting a certain carelessness, perhaps through ignorance about certain behaviors that can jeopardize patient confidentiality. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

In his book Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, Henry Giroux bemoans, “[H]igher education increasingly stands alone, even in its attenuated state, as a public arena where ideas can be debated, critical knowledge produced, and learning linked to important social issues.”1 Colleges of education, like public schools themselves, have become more fragmented and compartmentalized in recent years. Persistent at universities is “the view that students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a saleable commodity such as a credential or a set (...) of workplace skills.”2 Professors and teachers alike feel the impact of neoliberal policies aimed at efficiency and productivity, which further alienate and emphasize data... (shrink)

El presente trabajo parte del paralelo antitético establecido en torno al par amigo-enemigo que aparece en el “Concepto de lo político” de C. Schmitt para, a continuación, analizar las interesantes propuestas que llevan a cabo distintos autores, entre otros, H. Blumenberg, a las que añadiremos como contrapunto los representantes de la Escuela de J. Ritter, W. Böckenförde y H. Lübbe. En especial señalamos el tránsito que se produce de la neutralidad a la neutralización, a partir de la nueva consideración de (...) la temporalidad que se produjo a comienzos del Siglo XVI. Sin embargo, de esta paradójica constitución surgirán una serie de mitos correlativos a la neutralización que la refuerzan, por lo que nos referimos, finalmente, al status quo y al regreso, que constituyen los ecos metáforicos del moderno binomio progreso-regreso. (shrink)

Hearing loss has been identified as a major modifiable risk factors for dementia. Adult candidates for cochlear implantation represent a population at risk of hearing loss-associated cognitive decline. This study investigated the effect of demographics, habits, and medical and psychological risk factors on cognition within such a cohort. Data from 34 consecutive adults with post-lingual deafness scheduled for CI were analyzed. Pure tone audiometry and Speech Discrimination Score were recorded. The Repeatable Battery for Assessment of Neuropsychological Status for Hearing impaired (...) individuals was used to measure cognition. Demographics, habits, and medical factors were evaluated. Depression was measured using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and social inhibition with the Type D questionnaire. All participants suffered from severe to profound hearing loss. The mean RBANS-H total score was 83 ± 16. Participants reported a mean of years of formal education of 12 ± 5 years. The prevalence of habits and medical risk factors was: physical inactivity, body mass index >30, traumatic brain injury, hypertension, heavy alcohol consumption, smoking, and diabetes. Regarding psychological factors, the mean scores of social inhibition and depression were 10 ± 6 and 6 ± 5, respectively. The number of years of education was significantly correlated with the RBANS-H total score, and with the domains “Immediate memory”, “Visuospatial/constructional”, and “Attention”. The mean RBANS-H total score in participants who had university studies or higher level was 97 ± 9, with the remaining participants reporting a mean score of 75 ± 15. Men performed better in the “Visuospatial/constructional”. Physical inactivity was associated with lower scores in the “Delayed memory” ; hypertension correlated with lower RBANS-H total scores and “Attention”. Depression and social inhibition were negatively correlated with RBANS-H total score and with the “Immediate memory,” “Visuospatial/constructional,” and “Attention”. In adults with late-onset deafness scheduled to CI, educational level has a significant effect. Additionally, sex, physical inactivity, hypertension, and psychological traits of social inhibition and depression may also influence cognitive status. Long-term studies with more participants would enable us better understand the effects different risk factors on cognitive status. (shrink)

This paper analyzes biological and scientific discourses about the racial composition of the Brazilian population, between 1832 and 1911. The first of these dates represents Darwin’s first arrival in the South-American country during his voyage on H.M.S. Beagle. The study ends in 1911, with the celebration of the First universal Races congress in London, where the Brazilian physical anthropologist J.B. Lacerda predicted the complete extinction of black Brazilians by the year 2012. Contemporary European and North-American racial theories had a profound (...) influence in Brazilian scientific debates on race and miscegenation. These debates also reflected a wider political and cultural concern, shared by most Brazilian scholars, about the future of the Nation. With few known exceptions, Brazilian evolutionists, medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and naturalists, considered that the racial composition of the population was a handicap to the commonly shared nationalistic goal of creating a modern and progressive Brazilian Republic. (shrink)

Thought and Social Engagement in the Mexican-American Philosophy of John H. Haddox : A Collection of Critical Appreciations.

The article provides a reading of Baltasar Gracian El Criticón in the key of an allegorical ontology that has its central focus in an immanent anthropogenesis. On the basis of the classic monograph of H. Jansen on Gracian’s fundamental concepts, we appraise that a theory based on the search for a solid glory, on the honest exercise of virtue and on the meditation motivated by disillusion, draw the boundaries of the ethical discourse held in El Criticón . According to this (...) author, history confirms the loss of the paradigm of order that nature embodies, but also provides the opportunity to develop human prudence and to generate dispositives of community free from the dialectic of appearance. The central task for Gracián is to overcome the tribulation where man is aware to be worldly embedded, after having been imposed upon him. And to get it, only the direction of heroic virtue and value can be taken in order to obtain the esteem of others and to achieve immortality to eyes of an aesthetic community. (shrink)

El artículo propone una lectura de Los orígenes del totalitarismo (1951) de H. Arendt que entiende esta obra como análisis de las causas que condujeron a la crisis y decadencia del Estado-nación moderno y propiciaron el experimento más destructivo de la condición política del hombre, el fenómeno totalitario. Comenzaremos señalando las razones de la displicencia de Arendt hacia las reglas del método sociológico, al considerar que sólo las acciones humanas pueden iluminar retrospectivamente cuáles son los elementos que han cristalizado en (...) los acontecimientos históricos. En segundo lugar, nos detendremos en la incompatibilidad que Arendt encuentra entre poder político y enriquecimiento económico, de la mano de la crítica que realiza del Leviatán de Hobbes, por haber proporcionado una legitimación teórica a las necesidades de una clase en ascenso, la burguesía. El imperialismo sería, así, la consecuencia lógica del olvido del principio que ordena a los hombres volver la tierra un lugar habitable, introduciendo en ella un sistema de mediaciones legales. Finalmente, nos ocuparemos de la crítica que Arendt dirige a los derechos humanos, estrechamente ligada a la destinada al nacionalismo latente en toda forma estatal, que reduce drásticamente su contenido a la exigencia de pertenecer a una efectiva comunidad política, explorando a este respecto las posibilidades de un diálogo con la Doctrina del derecho de Kant, que también hace de la formación de una unión civil una condición fundamental para la defensa efectiva de los derechos del hombre. (shrink)

La relación que Ricoeur establece entre lo bueno, lo justo y la convicción permite postular un círculo hermenéutico —semejante al que Heidegger propone en su ontología fundamental, y que Gadamer complementa en Verdad y método— en la filosofía práctica, conformado por tres momentos: lo bueno, lo justo y su aplicación al contexto que lo demanda. Con su “pequeña ética”, mediada por esta reformulación, Ricoeur pretende terciar en la discusión entre la ética de la argumentación de Habermas y el comunitarismo e (...) historicismo de C. Taylor, A. MacIntyre y H.-G. Gadamer. (shrink)

Sport is an emotional experience. Studies have shown that high emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with better sports performance, though different aspects of sports experience and their relationship with EI are still unclear. This study examined the possible relationships between sports experience and EI dimensions of undergraduate athletes. Likewise, according to the differences described in the literature between men and women, the secondary aim was to identify the possible relationship between EI and sports experience in both subgroups. A total of (...) 1784 [712 men (39.9%), 1072 women (60.1%); mean age = 21.3 years, SD = 4.2)] undergraduate athletes completed the Trait Meta Mood Scale and a sports experience questionnaire. Comparisons between groups were performed using Mann–Whitney-Uand H-Kruskal–Wallis tests and correlations between variables were analyzed using Spearman correlation. We found that the number of different sports practiced and the number of years practicing sports were positively associated with emotional repair (ER). However, the number of years practicing sports was negatively associated with emotional attention (EA). Male athletes who trained more and had a higher competitive level were more likely to show higher ER. In any case, it is necessary to take into account that all the associations were weak. Our study suggested that athletes tend to attend to and value their feelings and use positive thinking to repair their negative moods. (shrink)

This article is part of a For-Discussion-Section of Methods of Information in Medicine about the paper "Biomedical Informatics: We Are What We Publish", written by Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, and Graham Wright. It is introduced by an editorial. This article contains the combined commentaries invited to independently comment on the Elkin et al. paper. In subsequent issues the discussion can continue through letters to the editor.

ABSTRACT This article interprets a recently recovered manuscript, Tratado de astronomía y la reformaçión del tiempo, composed by Antonio Sánchez in New Granada c.1696, in the context of the Spanish and Renaissance cosmographies. Sánchez’s Tratado proposes a spherical astronomy, in which celestial bodies – including comets — move in orbs containing pyramidal knots that explain the changing speed observed in the motion of planets. From this astronomy and following the peninsular style of repertorios, Sánchez derives two major (...) conclusions: the corrected length of the solar year and a revised birth date of Jesus. Taking as center of reference Vélez, where Sánchez was based, these claims led to conclusions in domains ranging from calendric astronomy to eschatology, including the incorporation of the indigenous peoples into salvation narrative and a demonstration of the arrangement of the celestial orbs at the Last Judgment. Sánchez’s Tratado constitutes an expansion of the Spanish mathematical cosmography that sheds light on the production of knowledge in the Spanish-American world and, at the same time, provides elements to reassess our understanding of the global circulation of Renaissance and early modern ideas. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to determine the association between Behavioral Lifestyles and longevity in the elderly. A search strategy was conducted in the PsycInfo, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. The primary outcome was mortality/survival. Four variables were analyzed to evaluate the role of potential moderators. Ninety-three articles, totaling more than 2,800,000 people, were included in the meta-analysis. We found that the lifestyles analyzed predict greater survival. Specifically, doing regular physical activity, engaging in leisure activities, sleeping (...) 7–8 h a day, and staying outside the BMI ranges considered as underweight or obesity are habits that each separately has a greater probability associated with survival after a period of several years. (shrink)

Plato -- Pyrrho -- The academics -- Sextus empiricus -- Augustine -- Erasmus -- Gianfrancesco Pico -- Hervet -- Montaigne -- Charron -- Sanchez -- Bacon -- Gassendi -- La Mothe le Vayer -- Descartes -- Pascal -- Glanvill -- Foucher -- Huet -- Locke -- Bayle -- Leibniz -- Crousaz -- Berkeley -- Ramsay -- Hume -- Voltaire -- Diderot -- Rousseau -- Kant -- Schulze -- Stäudlin -- Hegel -- Kierkegaard -- Nietzsche -- James -- Santayana -- Shestov (...) -- Wittgenstein -- Russell -- Popper -- Feyerabend -- Derrida -- Popkin -- Fogelin. (shrink)

In this second paper in a series on stochastic electrodynamics the system of a charged harmonic oscillator (HO) immersed in the stochastic zero-point field is analyzed. First, a method discussed by Claverie and Diner and Sanchez-Ron and Sanz permits a finite closed form renormalization of the oscillator frequency and charge, and allows the third-order Abraham-Lorentz (AL) nonrelativistic equation of motion, in dipole approximation, to be rewritten as an ordinary second-order equation, which thereby admits a conventional phase-space description and precludes the (...) runaway solutions of the AL equation. Second, following several authors, a momentum is defined that reduces to the usual canonical momentum in the limit of no radiation reaction, and the statistical moments of the oscillator position and this momentum are calculated in closed form to all orders of the radiative corrections. As has been shown by many authors, the velocity second moment is unbounded; semiquantitative arguments are given to support the conjecture that the use of the point-particle dipole approximation is responsible for this divergence. Third, it is shown that, to zeroth order in the radiative corrections, the renormalized HO has the same expectation energy found by other authors, that of the quantum ground state. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY seulement apr~s qu'on a drmontr6 son existence (pp. 182, 183, 185, 188). Or ceci nous parait tout h fait erronr: la critique mrt~physique de l'activit6 rrv~le qu'elle implique drpendance, et non seulement par rapport ~t d'autres 8tres finis (ce qu'Aristote a drift vu), mais par rapport ~t une Cause transcendante et infinie qui, en crrant l'~tre fini, lui donne constamment le pouvoir de se drpasser (...) en produisant ses aetes seconds. C'est pourquoi l'analyse mrtaphysique de l'activit6 est une des voies qui conduisent ~t la drcouverte de Dieu. Scot lui-m~me, du reste, reconnait que tout changement implique drpendance et rrv~le l'existence d'un Etre immuable et absolu (pp. 184-185). Ceci nous donne l'occasion de revenir h la prima via de Thomas d'Aquin. La libert6 avec laquelle nous avons discut6 nagu~re la valeur des quinque viae ne permet pas de nous SOUl~onner d'attachement servile aux positions du saint Docteur. La prima via est une preuve incomplete de l'existence de Dieu entendu comme le Crrateur unique de l'univers, nous avons dit et redit pourquoi. Mais l'argumentation qui s'appuie sur le principe de motion nous a toujours paru et nous parait encore inattaquable: dans la Summa contra Gentiles (I, 13), Thomas 6tait encore emp~tr6 dans la physique d'Aristote, mais, dans la Summa theologiae il se maintient strictement au plan mrtaphysique : un ~tre qui change vraiment ne saurait changer par lui-mSme. Ce principe est inrbranlable et la critique de Duns Scot est inol~rante ici. F. VAN STEENBERGHEN Louvain Francesco Sanchez. By Salvatore Miecolis. (Bari: Tipografia Levante, 1965. Universith di Bari, Pubblicazioni dell'Istituto di filosofia, no. 8. Pp. 100, one plate. No price given). Francisco Sanches,1 the Portuguese philosopher and physician of Jewish parentage who was also a relative of Montaigne, ranks as one of the more interesting of sixteenthcentury thinkers. Not only is he an important reviver of scepticism in the sixteenth century, but his best known work Quod nihil scitur (first printed in 1581) was still well enough known in the next century to draw several separate attacks. What is more, various scholars have pointed out the similarities between the arguments used in Sanches' work and Descartes' cogito argument. Though there are now quite a number of studies on Sanches, especially in Portuguese, there is not yet a defnitive study of aU aspects of his life, thought, and influence. In English there is very little indeed and we could well use a monograph or at least an article on Sanches to make some of his ideas accessible to a wider audience. A definitive study will require much work and 1 This is the Portuguese form of his name. It is also sometimes given the Spanish spelling 'Sanchez' as in the title of Miccolis' book. He was born near the Spanish-Portuguese border about 1550 and moved to France, while still a boy, and there spent the remainder of his life. There has been much discussion whether Sanches was in fact Portuguese or Spanish by birth and, consequently, which is the correct form of his name. It does not seem as though the question of his nationality can be answered with certainty. We have chosen to use the Portuguese form since the Portuguese seem to have adopted him as one of their philosophers more frequently than have the Spanish. BOOK REVIEWS 93 would have to use the extensive notes made by H. P. Cazac, who died before he could utilize all of the material which he had collected,z For these reasons one might look to Miccolis' book as a new contribution to Sanches studies. One is bound to be disappointed, however, for little new material is brought forth here and even previous studies on Sanches are not fully utilized. Although this study has the format of a book, its length is little more than that of a substantial article (ca. 25,000 words). After a very brief introductory section on the life and works of Sanches, the author treats the Quod nihil scitur and 'Sanches and medicine' in... (shrink)

The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve to be cultivated by sportspersons and that is pivotal to perfect sportspersons’ moral (...) character. Not only is prudence required to apply mētis profitably for winning a game, but it is also indispensable to perform consistently with the game’s norms—cognizant of sport values. This analysis of mētis is key to illuminate the embodied dimension of tactical and moral reasoning in contemporary sport practice. In this paper, we first argue that the strategic effectiveness of mētis proves that not only sensorimotor control but also higher forms of intelligence, like strategic reasoning, are embodied and inform skilful performance; second, we argue that relying on mētis is necessary not only to interpret the rules of the game in one’s own favor but also to respect the shared values that these rules uphold in the sport practice. (shrink)

This paper’s main contention is that some basically methodological developments in science which are apparently distant and unrelated can be seen as part of a sequential story. Focusing on general inferential and epistemological matters, the paper links occurrences separated by both in time and space, by formal and representational issues rather than social or disciplinary links. It focuses on a few limited aspects of several cognitive practices in medical and biological contexts separated by geography, disciplines and decades, but connected by (...) long term transdisciplinary representational and inferential structures and constraints. The paper intends to show a given set of knowledge claims based on organizing statistically empirical data can be seen to have been underpinned by a previous, more familiar, and probably more natural, narrative handling of similar evidence. To achieve that this paper moves from medicine in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century in England among gentleman naturalists, following its subject: the shift from narrative depiction of hereditary transmission of physical peculiarities to posterior statistical articulations of the same phenomena. Some early defenders of heredity as an important causal presence in the understanding of life adopted singular narratives, in the form of case stories from medical and natural history traditions, to flesh out a special kind of causality peculiar to heredity. This work tries to reconstruct historically the rationale that drove the use of such narratives. It then shows that when this rationale was methodologically challenged, its basic narrative and probabilistic underpinings were transferred to the statistical quantificational tools that took their place. (shrink)

The debate about justice in immigration seems somehow stagnated given that it seems justice requires both further exclusion and more porous borders. In the face of this, I propose to take a step back and to realize that the general problem of borders—to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have—gives rise to two particular problems: first, to justify exclusive control over the administration of borders (the problem of legitimacy of borders) and, second, to specify how this control (...) ought to be exercised (the problem of justice of borders). The literature has explored the second but ignored the first. Therefore, I propose a different approach to the ethics of immigration by focusing on concerns of legitimacy in a three-step framework: first, identifying the kind of authority or power that immigration controls exercise; second, redefining borders as international and domestic institutions that issue that kind of power; and finally, considering supranational institutions that redistribute the right to exclude among legitimate borders. (shrink)

This article assesses an assumption pervasive in one strain of arguments in favor of stringent immigration controls. The assumption affirms that—for the case of regular admissions—to a certain extent states are permitted to prioritize the interests of their citizens and residents by issuing exclusionary immigration policies (call this the priority assumption). Using the normative methodology of applied international ethics, I suggest some broad constraints to this priority assumption that have a bearing on justifications for current practical immigration policy in Europe, (...) North America, and beyond. I do so by redefining borders as domestic-international institutions that open up borders not only to (internal) standards of justice but also to standards of international legitimacy. (shrink)

This article examines fashion models as gender myths and cultural iconsthrough a cultural history of modelling. It reveals the construction of models’ personas by the successive addition of meaningful signs:physique, manner, attitude, nationality, class, race, salary, chameleonism, slenderness and so on. On the basis of empirical material on models’ experiences gathered from interviews, secondary oral sources and autobiographical material, the author approaches models’ bodies, identities and public personas as artefacts performed through the reiteration of collectively defined gender standards and practices. (...) This approach overcomes the contrast cast in fashion discourse between visibility/invisibility, private/public, real/unreal while disclosing the hegemonic beauty standards as fiction. (shrink)