This article examines an innovative experiment in democratizing international broadcasting through embracing a participatory model of production. In spring 2010, a political debate television series was co-created by BBC Arabic and citizen producers, using social media tools. Based around interviews with prominent political and controversial public figures, the programme (G710) was broadcast weekly on satellite TV across the Middle East and the Arabic-speaking world. Combining collaborative ethnography with corporate ‘big data’ analysis, the research team followed the experiment from conception to (...) premature closure. The article argues that the kinds of digital tools deployed in producing the programme, and used by BBC audience research to monitor user practices in real time, have become essential to corporate processes of BBC World Service governance and management procedures, business strategy, accountability measures, marketing practices and editorial decision-making. They act as change agents, presenting methodological problems and opportunities for the BBC’s audience researchers and academic researchers, as well as symbolizing the contradictory logic of empowerment and surveillance. (shrink)

The preparation of samples for gene diagnosis is time‐consuming, labor‐intensive and costly. These problems can be overcome by dissolving a biological source in a strong solution of a chaotropic salt, then filtering the solution through an immobilizing membrane. Conditions exist for causing the selective immobilization of either DNA or mRNA. The resultant membrane is immediately ready for reaction with labeled gene probes.

Mari Mikkola identifies three primary forms of social injustice—oppression, domination, and discrimination—and asks what makes them wrong. She argues that feminist philosophy has thus far focused heavily on gender as a lens or anchor through which to understand and respond to injustice. In Mikkola's view, this orientation around gender is limiting feminist philosophers' theoretical engagement with the roots of injustice. To remedy this problem, she builds a case for moving toward a more broadly humanist conception of injustice. The humanist feminism (...) that she puts forth centers dehumanization as a way to theorize injustice; dehumanization, for Mikkola, is the very... (shrink)

We propose that some aspects of language evolved to fit the brain, whereas other aspects co-evolved with the brain. Cladistic analysis indicates that common basic structures of both action and grammar arose in phylogeny six million years ago and in ontogeny before age two, with a shared prefrontal neural substrate. In contrast, mirror neurons, found in both humans and monkeys, suggest that the neural basis for intersubjectivity evolved before language. Natural selection acts upon genes controlling the neural substrates of these (...) phenotypic language functions. (shrink)

Discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is currently dominated by two opposing interpretations of the work: a metaphysical or realist reading and the 'resolute' reading of Diamond and Conant. Marie McGinn's principal aim in this book is to develop an alternative interpretative line, which rejects the idea, central to the metaphysical reading, that Wittgenstein sets out to ground the logic of our language in features of an independently constituted reality, but which allows that he aims to provide positive philosophical insights into (...) how language functions. McGinn takes as a guiding principle the idea that we should see Wittgenstein's early work as an attempt to eschew philosophical theory and to allow language itself to reveal how it functions. By this account, the aim of the work is to elucidate what language itself makes clear, namely, what is essential to its capacity to express thoughts that are true or false. However, the early Wittgenstein undertakes this descriptive project in the grip of a set of preconceptions concerning the essence of language that determine both how he conceives the problem and the approach he takes to the task of clarification. Nevertheless, the Tractatus contains philosophical insights, achieved despite his early preconceptions, that form the foundation of his later philosophy. -/- The anti-metaphysical interpretation that is presented includes a novel reading of the problematic opening sections of the Tractatus, in which the apparently metaphysical status of Wittgenstein's remarks is shown to be an illusion. The book includes a discussion of the philosophical background to the Tractatus, a comprehensive interpretation of Wittgenstein's early views of logic and language, and an interpretation of the remarks on solipsism. The final chapter is a discussion of the relation between the early and the later philosophy that articulates the fundamental shift in Wittgenstein's approach to the task of understanding how language functions and reveal the still more fundamental continuity in his conception of his philosophical task. (shrink)

In dialogue with the most famous myth for the origin of different languages - The Tower of Babel - A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel provides a series of timely reflections on the themes of sameness and otherness from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective. How are we dealing with communication and its difficulties, the confusion of tongues and loss of common ground within a European context today? Can we move beyond Babel? Confusion and feared loss of shared values (...) and identity are a major part of the daily work of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bringing together an international range psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, the book is divided into six parts and covers an array of resonant topics, including: language and translation; cultural identity; families and children; the cyber world; the psychotherapeutic process; and migration. Whereas the quest for unity, which underpins the myth of Babel, leads to mystification, simplification and the exclusion of people or things, multilingual communities necessitate mutual understanding through dialogue. This book examines those factors which further or threaten communication, aiming not to reduce but to gain complexity. It suggests that diversification enriches communication and that, by relating to others, we can create something new. As opposed to cultural and linguistic homogeneity, Babel is not only a metaphor for mangled communication, alienation, and distraction, it is also about the acceptance or rejection of differences between self and other. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds. (shrink)

The positive psychology landscape is changing, and its initial identity is being challenged. Moving beyond the “third wave of PP,” two roads for future research and practice in well-being studies are discerned: The first is the state of the art PP trajectory that will continue as a scientific discipline in/next to psychology. The second trajectory links to pointers described as part of the so-called third wave of PP, which will be argued as actually being the beginning of a new domain (...) of inter- or transdisciplinary well-being studies in its own right. It has a broader scope than the state of the art in PP, but is more delineated than in planetary well-being studies. It is in particular suitable to understand the complex nature of bio-psycho-social-ecological well-being, and to promote health and wellness in times of enormous challenges and changes. A unique cohering focus for this post-disciplinary well-being research domain is proposed. In both trajectories, future research will have to increase cognizance of metatheoretical assumptions, develop more encompassing theories to bridge the conceptual fragmentation in the field, and implement methodological reforms, while keeping context and the interwovenness of the various levels of the scientific text in mind. Opportunities are indicated to contribute to the discourse on the identity and development of scientific knowledge in mainstream positive psychology and the evolving post-disciplinary domain of well-being studies. (shrink)

Wittgenstein is the most influential twentieth century philosopher in the English-speaking world. In the _Philosophical Investigations_, his most important work, he introduces the famous 'private language argument' which changed the whole philosophical view of language. _Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations_ introduces and assesses: * Wittgenstein's life, and its connection with his thought * the text of the _Philosophical Investigations_ * the importance of Wittgenstein's work to contemporary philosophy.

The Greek and Roman atomistic tradition (whose most famous representatives are Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius), defends radical and immanentist ideas about the discovery of technologies in human societies. The appearance of new technologies, insofar as it is due to the satisfaction of human needs and derives from natural necessity, reveals that human work is in some way a natural process. Consequently, human beings do not need any kind of Promethean intervention, which would provide them with new skills and technologies. However, (...) the Epicurean tradition, as evidenced by several texts (especially in Lucretius), echoes the mythological figure of Prometheus, in showing that human beings, through their discoveries, are independent from the gods. Epicurus himself, in Lucretius’ De rerum natura, embodies, like Prometheus, the ideal of human emancipation from superstitious representations of the gods. It does not mean, however, that work and technical discoveries are the best means of emancipation: for Epicurus and his followers, philosophy itself remains the safest way to tranquillity and freedom. (shrink)

This paper looks at statements I am in a position to make ‘straight off’: observational judgements, perceptual and memory statements, statements about my posture, my intentions, and so on. These kinds of statement pose a problem: what is the nature of my entitlement to them? I focus on observational judgements and on two contrasting approaches to them. The first, which I reject, provides an account of my warrant for them; the second, which I defend, disconnects my entitlement from possession of (...) a justification. I consider what light the second approach sheds on the other kinds of statements I am in a position to make straight off. (shrink)

Different sort of people are interested in personal identity. Philosophers frequently ask what it takes to remain oneself. Caregivers imagine their patients’ experience. But both philosophers and caregivers think from the armchair: they can only make assumptions about what it would be like to wake up with massive bodily changes. Patients with a locked-in syndrome suffer a full body paralysis without cognitive impairment. They can tell us what it is like. Forty-four chronic LIS patients and 20 age-matched healthy medical professionals (...) answered a 15-items questionnaire targeting: global evaluation of identity, body representation and experienced meaning in life. In patients, self-reported identity was correlated with B and C. Patients differed with controls in C. These results suggest that the paralyzed body remains a strong component of patients’ experienced identity, that patients can adjust to objectives changes perceived as meaningful and that caregivers fail in predicting patients’ experience. (shrink)

Personhood is ascribed on others, such that someone who is recognized to be a person is bestowed with certain civil rights and the right to decision making. A rising question is how severely brain-injured patients who regain consciousness can also regain their personhood. The case of patients with locked-in syndrome is illustrative in this matter. Upon restoration of consciousness, patients with LIS find themselves in a state of profound demolition of their bodily functions. From the third-person perspective, it can be (...) expected that LIS patients might experience a differential personal identity and may lose their status as persons. However, from the patients’ perspective, it is uncontested that they retain their personal identity and that they consider themselves to be persons. We here include results from a survey with patients with LIS aimed at identifying the primary expectations of patients for their care by non-medical professionals. Based on these first-hand reports, we argue that personhood in LIS is progressively regained as the widening circle of others recognizes them as persons. (shrink)

Marie McGinn; VII*—The Third Dogma of Empiricism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 89–102, https://doi.org/10.109.

In [12], P. Scowcroft and L. van den Dries proved a cell decomposition theorem for p-adically closed fields. We work here with the notion of P-minimal fields defined by D. Haskell and D. Macpherson in [6]. We prove that a P-minimal field K admits cell decomposition if and only if K has definable selection. A preprint version in French of this result appeared as a prepublication [8].

To test if dreams contain remote or never-experienced motor skills, we collected during 6 weeks dream reports from 15 paraplegics and 15 healthy subjects. In 9/10 subjects with spinal cord injury and in 5/5 with congenital paraplegia, voluntary leg movements were reported during dream, including feelings of walking , running , dancing , standing up , bicycling , and practicing sports . Paraplegia patients experienced walking dreams just as often as controls . There was no correlation between the frequency of (...) walking dreams and the duration of paraplegia. In contrast, patients were rarely paraplegic in dreams. Subjects who had never walked or stopped walking 4–64 years prior to this study still experience walking in their dreams, suggesting that a cerebral walking program, either genetic or more probably developed via mirror neurons is reactivated during sleep. (shrink)

There are currently two readings of Tractatus, the metaphysical and the therapeutic. I argue that neither of these is satisfactory. I develop a third reading, the elucidatory reading. This shares the therapeutic interpretation’s emphasis on the idea that Wittgenstein’s remarks are intended to work on the reader, but instead of seeing these remarks as directed (problematically) at revealing their own nonsensical status, I take the remarks to be aimed at bringing a certain order to the reader’s perception of language. The (...) point of this order, and the only test of it, is that it enables the philosophical problems to disappear. In particular, it dispels philosophical puzzlement concerning the status of logic, the relation between language and the world, and the relation between thought and language. (shrink)

El artículo trata de la función de los diáconos en la Iglesia de los primeros siglos, para resaltar la relación que Agustín tuvo con ellos, así como el papel que desempeñaban en su propia Iglesia de Hipona y del Africa del Norte, siguiendo las investigaciones de Elisabeth Paoli.

Este artículo, después de las observaciones preliminares, expone dos cuestiones, a saber, si las Locutiones in Hepateucum de Agustín están completas y cuál era el propósito de esta obra.

This paper considers the terms used for designating parents in reports dealing with child protection, and explores the pragmatic impact of the reports’ extremely cautious choice of words. I test the hypothesis that, even if words are not argumentative in themselves, they can become argumentative in the context of a particular discourse. To this end, this paper develops a two-pronged analysis, combining lexical description with quantitative as well as qualitative methodologies. The findings suggest that lexis is argumentative not only because (...) of its paradigmatic dimension, but also because of its syntagmatic dimension. The results may find a practical application when training social workers in how to write their reports. (shrink)

Flax seedlings grown in the absence of environmental stimuli, stresses and injuries do not form epidermal meristems in their hypocotyls. Such meristems do form when the stimuli are combined with a transient depletion of calcium. These stimuli include the “manipulation stimulus” resulting from transferring the seedlings from germination to growth conditions. If, after a stimulus, calcium depletion is delayed, meristem production is also delayed; in other words, the meristem-production instruction can be memorised. Memorisation includes both storage and recall of information. (...) Here, we focus on information recall. We show that if the first transient calcium depletion is followed by a second transient depletion there is a new round of meristem production. We also show that if an excess of calcium follows calcium depletion, meristem production is blocked; but if the excess of calcium is in turn followed by another calcium depletion, again there is a new round of meristem production. The same stored information can thus be recalled repeatedly . We describe a conceptual model that takes into account these findings. (shrink)

Penser le « corps énergétique » et la danse revient à considérer cette réalité énergétique au sein du corps dansant, autant au niveau quantitatif que qualitatif. En danse, nous ne parlons pas exactement de « corps énergétique », mais principalement d’énergie déployée. Afin de comprendre le « corps énergétique » en danse, nous nous sommes intéressés à deux pratiques originales mettant en œuvre un jeu de question-réponse énergétique : le contact improvisation et le vol chorégraphique. Le corps énergétique apparaît au (...) fur et à mesure de la réflexion comme une métaphore désignant une triade nécessaire au déploiement d’un seul système, et c’est cette même triade que nous rencontrons à chaque fois que nous appréhendons la complexité du corps dansant. (shrink)

L’article se propose d’explorer l’univers des facultés de droit sous la République de Weimar, que les contemporains jugent en « crise ». Cette perception renvoie tout d’abord aux difficultés d’adaptation d’un enseignement qui est de plus en plus écartelé entre les exigences de la science (transmettre une compréhension historique de l’évolution du droit) et celles de la pratique (préparer les étudiants au monde professionnel par une connaissance du droit en vigueur) : l’Université apparaît ainsi comme un lieu de confrontation entre (...) professeurs et autorités étatiques pour le contrôle du cursus juridique. Par ailleurs, dans un contexte de grande expansion des effectifs étudiants, les facultés de droit ne connaissent pas de démocratisation de leur public et restent le domaine des élites traditionnelles ; de ce fait, elles semblent en décalage avec leur époque et continuent de former un univers passéiste que conforte l’engagement des étudiants dans des corporations traditionnelles. Ce mode de socialisation explique leur radicalisation dans le camp antirépublicain dès les années 1920. (shrink)

Lack of attribution and plagiarism can create a special problem for journalists. As numerous examples indicate, there is confusion about the sometimes fine line between lack of attribution and plagiarism. But there is even more confusion over how to solve the problem. Short of restructuring the journalism profession to create an overall governing body similar to the law bar, there is no way to create a set of national guidelines on when lack of attribution might become plagiarism. The only place (...) to deal with the ambiguity of this issue is at the level of the individual papers. (shrink)