The complexity and inefficiency of the U.S. health care system complicates the distribution of life-saving medical technologies. When the public health is at stake, however, there are alternatives. The proposal for a national PrEP program published in this issue of the Journal applies some of the lessons of the national COVID vaccine campaign to HIV prevention. In doing so, it draws on other examples of public health approaches to the financing of medical technology, from vaccines for children to hepatitis C (...) treatment. (shrink)

In the past decades, an enormous amount of precious information has been collected about molecular and genetic characteristics of cancer. This knowledge is mainly based on a reductionistic approach, meanwhile cancer is widely recognized to be a ‘system biology disease’. The behavior of complex physiological processes cannot be understood simply by knowing how the parts work in isolation. There is not solely a matter how to integrate all available knowledge in such a way that we can still deal with complexity, (...) but we must be aware that a deeply transformation of the currently accepted oncologic paradigm is urgently needed. We have to think in terms of biological networks: understanding of complex functions may in fact be impossible without taking into consideration influences outside of the genome. Systems Biology involves connecting experimental unsupervised multivariate data to mathematical and computational approach than can simulate biologic systems for hypothesis testing or that can account for what it is not known from high-throughput data sets. Metabolomics could establish the requested link between genotype and phenotype, providing informations that ensure an integrated understanding of pathogenic mechanisms and metabolic phenotypes and provide a screening tool for new targeted drug. (shrink)

Antiretroviral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is protective against HIV. Low utilization rates amongst HIV vulnerable populations are due in part to the high cost of PrEP. Generic PrEP offers the potential to improve health at significantly reduced costs. In this study, we examine early utilization patterns and prices for generic PrEP. We discuss the opportunities and challenges for generic PrEP to improve health among HIV vulnerable populations.

One unanticipated pleasure of writing a book has been seeing how intelligent and learned people respond to it. This roundtable is no exception. I’m very grateful to Hugo Drochon for suggesting and...

El propósito de este ensayo consiste en echar luz sobre la renovación de la que el comunismo ha sido objeto durante los últimos años. Para ello se concede atención a los principales argumentos propues- tos por las nuevas perspectivas filosófico-políticas de las izquierdas (i). Hecho esto, se atienden algunos de los escritos de Marx, con el objetivo de dilucidar cómo el término adquiere sus connotaciones clásicas (ii) y se vincula, además, con la idea de comunidad (iii). Se espera poder demostrar (...) que en la actualidad las izquierdas conti- núan encontrándose en deuda con Marx. (shrink)

A secret concealed for centuries, shrouded in myth, silenced by stone. A secret that if unleashed threatens to shake the very foundation of Western civilization. A secret that can remain hidden no longer. The quest begins in Rome, where a grizzly murder and a plundered tomb serve to ignite perhaps the most controversial conflict in human history. Inspector Domenico Conti is charged with the task of recovering the contents of the tomb, but as he delves deeper into the investigation, he (...) is thrust into the center of a centuries-old struggle between truth and those who would stop at nothing to conceal it. But he is not alone. Dr. Dana McCarter, newly appointed director of the Advanced Institute for the Study of Antiquity, finds herself at the heart of the mystery when her considerable expertise in ancient Greek philosophy and her suspect involvement with the black market take her on a journey beginning in her New York University offices and sweeping around the globe—from the dark alleys of Moscow, to the rolling hills of the Italian countryside and the enigmatic relics of an ancient civilization, alive with long-kept secrets. As the search for answers leads them through a labyrinth of conspiracy and intrigue, Dana and Domenico must question everything they believe in and decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to know the truth. (shrink)

According to libertarianism about free will, at least some of the choices we make are free and undetermined. Many libertarians also accept the thesis that, before we make an undetermined choice, there is a nontrivial objective probability that we will make that choice. In the literature on free will, the ascription of objective probabilities is sometimes justified via an “Argument from Motivation,” which adverts to the fact that typically, in situations of choice, we are more motivated to choose some options (...) over others. In this paper, I will examine this argument and I will argue that it is unsound, as one of its premises is at odds with a widely accepted principle governing the evolution of objective probabilities over time. (shrink)

In thirteen essays from different aesthetic traditions, Aesthetic Apprehensions: Silences and Absences in False Familiarities problematizes our habituated customs of seeing and reading the familiar to focus on that which cannot easily be comprehended but may be sensed through encounters with the ruptures and gaps that quietly beckon our attention.

Philosopher of science Bruno Latour defines the image as “any sign, work of art, inscription or painting serving as a mediation to reach something else.” According to this definition, mediation could very well be a synonym for image. In this article, I would like to use Latour’s work to argue for the crucial role that images play in overcoming a certain modern worldview that has divided the world into ontological essences that separate subject and object, nature and culture. It is (...) precisely the erasure of the mediations, the images that connect these different forms of life together, that has led to the positing of the modern constitution of autonomous essences, cut off from the many agencies that give them life. Using the art installations of artist Tomas Saraceno, this article will show that it is precisely this mediating role of art that lends it such an interdisciplinary and phenomenological role in allowing the invisible webs connecting earth and sky, nature and culture, human and non-human, to be seen. (shrink)

Este artigo se divide em quatro partes. Inicialmente apresentamos a noção de biopolítica de modo introdutório, considerando a relação entre poder soberano e biopoder. Voltamo-nos para a elaboração foucaultiana do termo de modo a esclarecer, em linhas gerais, seu sentido. Essa breve análise da noção de biopolítica encaminha-nos para o conceito de tanatopolítica, que aparece, na segunda parte do texto, como epíteto da derivação funesta da biopolítica. Na terceira parte, a partir de uma perspectiva biopolítica, lançamos luz sobre a crise (...) que enfrentamos. Trata-se de um esforço de evidenciar o sentido biopolítico da crise atual, considerando o conteúdo das reflexões de Foucault. Finalmente, na quarta parte, atualizamos o debate acerca da biopolítica por meio de uma análise da noção de imunidade formulada por Esposito, a qual fornece uma importante chave interpretativa da pandemia atual. (shrink)

We question the idea that the mirror neuron system is the substrate of social affordances perception, and we suggest that most of the activity seen in the parietal and premotor cortex of the human brain is independent of mirroring activity as characterized in macaques, but rather reflects a process of one's own action specification in response to social signals.

Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, the authors provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories.

Weaving and unweaving the fabric of sacrifice -- A description of Greek sacrificial ritual -- Sacrificing Socrates: the mise-en-scène of the death scene of the Phaedo -- The search for the most fitting cause -- The so-called genuine philosophers and the work of soul -- Athens at twilight.

In Feb. 2022 Sungho Kimlee passed away. In his memory, we present this revised and abridged version of a portion of his dissertation, Factions and Orders: from Machiavelli to Madison. Sungho summarized the work as follows: “Since antiquity, thinkers have held that every society consists of two hostile orders – the few and the many. But they have disagreed on the proper method for defusing this civic divide, and their various proposed remedies can be classified into three approaches. The first (...) approach aims to eliminate the division between the rich and the poor by abolishing private property. Plato’s Republic inaugurated this method, which was later embraced with ambivalence by Thomas More and vigorously defended by Karl Marx. The second approach merely aims to contain the harmful effects of the binary civic divide. Plato proposed two methods for accomplishing this in the Laws: Plutarch championed the first method, and Aristotle the second. My dissertation traces the genealogy of the third approach – the method of supplanting the binary civic divide with more numerous divisions. This oft-neglected method was pioneered by Rousseau, who prescribed the creation of artificial divisions by the state as a remedy for majority factions. (shrink)

A long-standing theme in discussion of perception and thought has been that our primary cognitive contact with individual objects and events in the world derives from our perceptual contact with them. When I look at a duck in front of me, I am not merely presented with the fact that there is at least one duck in the area, rather I seem to be presented withthisthing (as one might put it from my perspective) in front of me, which looks to (...) me to be a duck. Furthermore, such a perception would seem to put me in a position not merely to make the existential judgment that there is some duck or other present, but rather to make a singular, demonstrative judgment, that that is a duck. My grounds for an existential judgment in this case derives from my apprehension of the demonstrative thought and not vice versa. (shrink)

SummaryThis article offers a novel and comprehensive account of Walter Bagehot's political thought. It ties together an interpretation of Bagehot's liberal commitment to norms of discussion and deliberation, with an analysis of Bagehot's extensive arguments about the institutions of representative government. We show how Bagehot's opposition to American-style presidentialism, to parliamentary democracy, and to proportional representation were profoundly shaped by his conceptions of government by discussion, and the rule of public opinion. Bagehot's criticisms of English parliamentarianism, both of its pre-1832 (...) and post-1832 varieties were also motivated by those principles, as was his own proposal for parliamentary reform. By examining the whole range of Bagehot's writings on representative government and by connecting his institutional recommendations to his liberal principles, we are also able to better clarify Bagehot's position in Victorian political thought. The article concludes with a discussion of the debate leading up to the Second Reform Act, in which we elucidate Bagehot's disagreements with other prominent exponents of liberalism including John Stuart Mill, the “university liberals,” and Robert Lowe. (shrink)

In order to explore some of the divergences within new materialism and elucidate their relationship to actor-network theory, this article will develop Latour’s theory of agency and then compare it to those new materialists who uphold a ‘flat ontology’ that includes technological tools and those who uphold an animate/inanimate distinction. In light of the ecological crisis called the Anthropocene, the dissolution of the animate/inanimate distinction will be defended in order to address both polar bears and glaciers, coral reefs and clown (...) fish. Though Latour himself has defended such a dissolution, his political proposals to address the ecological crisis revert back to the modern and dualist position he has himself critiqued for so long. Using the gains of actor-network theory, while differentiating a new materialist ecological politics from that of Latour, will be shown to be necessary in order to find a solution to the crisis of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

This book defends antitheodicism, arguing that theodicies, seeking to excuse God for evil and suffering in the world, fail to ethically acknowledge the victims of suffering. The authors argue for this view using literary and philosophical resources, commencing with Immanuel Kant's 1791 "Theodicy Essay" and its reading of the Book of Job. Three important twentieth century antitheodicist positions are explored, including "Jewish" post-Holocaust ethical antitheodicism, Wittgensteinian antitheodicism exemplified by D.Z. Phillips and pragmatist antitheodicism defended by William James. The authors argue (...) that these approaches to evil and suffering are fundamentally Kantian. Literary works such as Franz Kafka'sThe Trial, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, are examined in order to crucially advance the philosophical case for antitheodicism. (shrink)