Fibrillar protein aggregates are the pathological hallmark of a group of age‐dependent neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Aggregates of the microtubule‐associated protein Tau are observed in Alzheimer's disease and primary tauopathies. Tau pathology propagates from cell to cell in a prion‐like process that is likely subject to modulation by extracellular chaperones such as Clusterin. We recently reported that Clusterin delayed Tau fibril formation but enhanced the activity of Tau oligomers to seed aggregation of endogenous Tau in a cellular (...) model. In contrast, Clusterin inhibited the propagation of α‐Synuclein aggregates associated with Parkinson's disease. These findings raise the possibility of a mechanistic link between Clusterin upregulation observed in Alzheimer's disease and the progression of Tau pathology. Here we review the diverse functions of Clusterin in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, focusing on evidence that Clusterin may act either as a suppressor or enhancer of pathology. (shrink)

As we look to the future in a world with porous borders and boundaries transgressed by technologies, an inevitable question is:Can there be a single, global bioethics? Intimately intertwined with this question is a second one: How might a global bioethics account for profound - and constantly transforming - sources of cultural difference? Can a uniform, global bioethics be relevant cross-culturally? These are not simple questions, rather, a multi-dimensional answer is required. It is important to distinguish between two meanings of (...) bioethics: the academic discipline of bioethics as opposed to bioethics as a set of practices governing clinical care and scientific research. There is growing evidence to support the notion of a shared global understanding of bioethics as a field of inquiry focused on the moral dimensions of science and biomedicine. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 (= Eudemian Ethics 6.7), Aristotle distinguishes softness (malakia) from lack of self-control (akrasia) and endurance (karteria) from self-control (enkrateia). This paper argues that unqualified softness consists of a disposition to give up acting to avoid the painful toil (ponos) required to execute practical resolutions, and (coincidentally) to enjoy the pleasures of rest and relaxation. The enduring person, in contrast, persists in her commitments despite the painful effort required to enact them. Along the way, I argue that (...) this interpretation qualifies our understanding of the pleasures and pains with which temperance and intemperance are concerned. (shrink)

The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

El objetivo del trabajo es plantear una revisión de los clásicos de la filosofía para ampliar nuestro conocimiento histórico y, a la vez, abrir la puerta a nuevas posibles conceptualizaciones de lo político. Concretamente, defendemos que puede haber relevantes pensadoras entre las mujeres religiosas del Renacimiento (y probablemente antes), cuyos escritos son difíciles de analizar desde la perspectiva empleada para estudiar los textos prototípicos del género discursivo. Para solventar esta dificultad, partimos de dos premisas: a) la configuración de los universos (...) discursivos en que se les permite tomar parte no tiene por qué coincidir con la de los discursos prototípicamente masculinos; y b) no se puede comprender el buen gobierno del convento, entendido como una particular civitas (filosofía política), sin la experiencia religiosa femenina como medio para legitimar un poder que no les es reconocido por medios humanos (mística política). A modo de ejemplo, analizamos desde esta distinción entre filosofía política y mística política dos tratados de la carmelita descalza María de san José Salazar, _Consejos que da una priora_ (1590) y _Maestra de novicias_ (1602), en los que se proponen recomendaciones para el virtuoso gobierno conventual femenino basadas en una incuestionable experiencia de gestión. (shrink)

La dimensión ética respecto al uso de la inteligencia artificial es hoy un debate obligado en diversas áreas del conocimiento. Los beneficios de la IA en la educación son innegables, sin embargo, invitan a los educadores a una reflexión profunda respecto a los objetivos que se espera alcanzar en los aprendizajes, así como a los riesgos que este tipo de tecnología presenta. A través de una revisión bibliográfica sobre los alcances éticos en educación, se constata la existencia de diversas regulaciones (...) que, desde la perspectiva humanista, apuntan a un uso responsable, sin perder de vista que el fin último es la persona y su dignidad. La ética corre tras los avances tecnológicos, pues la reflexión sobre el uso adecuado de ellas no logra anticiparse a su rápida implementación. Unesco y el Consenso de Beijing señalan que la IA debe estar al servicio de la educación y que es crucial promover una utilización equitativa e inclusiva, transparente y responsable. Generar confianza debe ser el pilar fundamental de esta construcción ética, por ello exige que los líderes escolares y los docentes reflexionen la finalidad del uso; se promueva una adecuada capacitación; se identifiquen beneficios y riesgos y se incorpore a toda la comunidad educativa. (shrink)

Ours is a time of dramatic and confusing transformations in everyday life, many of them originating in the social enfranchisement of women that has occurred over the past twenty-five years. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild demonstrates a widespread phenomenon of work-family imbalance in our society, experienced by people in terms of a time bind, and a devaluation of familial relationships. As large numbers of women have moved into the workplace, familial relations of all sorts have been colonized by what Virginia Held critically (...) refers to as the contractual paradigm. Even the mother/child relationship, representing for Held an alternative feminist paradigm of selfhood and agency, has been in large part "outsourced." I believe that an Arendtian conception of speech and action might enable us to assert anew the grounds for familial relations. If we require a new site upon which to address our human plurality and natality, the postpatriarchal family may provide that new site upon which individuals can freely act to recreate the fabric of human relationships. It would seem to be our moral and political responsibility as social philosophers today to speculatively contribute to the difficult yet imperative task of reconfiguring the family. In this paper, I attempt to articulate the basic assumptions from which such a reconfiguration must begin. (shrink)

A rich and multi-stranded sociology of sporting embodiment has begun to emerge in recent years. Calls have been made to analyze more deeply not only the sensory dimensions of lived sporting bodies but also the values prevailing within particular physical–cultural worlds. This article contributes to a small, developing research corpus by employing theoretical perspectives drawn from phenomenological sociology to explore cross-country runners' sensory encounters with the elemental, contoured by the values of the running lifeworlds they inhabit. Autoethnographic and autophenomenographic data (...) were collected via three research projects. Senses of touch still remain under-researched within the sporting sensorium, and here we focus on the “elemental haptics” of earth and air on our cross-country training runs. We also explore the rich, complex somatic experiences afforded by various of these elemental combinations. For runners, as for many sports participants, the haptic emerges as a key aspect of our sensuous running lifeworld. (shrink)

Knowledge-first epistemology includes a knowledge norm of action: roughly, act only on what you know. This norm has been criticized, especially from the perspective of so-called standard decision theory. Mueller and Ross provide example decision problems which seem to show that acting properly cannot require knowledge. I argue that this conclusion depends on applying a particular decision theory which is ill-motivated in this context. Agents’ knowledge is often most plausibly formalized as an ambiguous epistemic state, and the theory of decision (...) under ambiguity is then the appropriate modeling tool. I show how to model agents as acting rationally on the basis of their knowledge according to such a theory. I conclude that the tension between the knowledge norm of action and formal decision theory is illusory; the knowledge-first paradigm should be used to actively select the decision-theoretical tools that can best capture the knowledge-based decisions in any given situation. (shrink)

Unmanaged recreation presents a challenge to both researchers and managers of outdoor recreation in the United States because it is shrouded in uncertainty resulting from disagreement over the definition of the problem, the strategies for resolving the problem, and the outcomes of management. Incomplete knowledge about recreation visitors’ values and relationships with one another, other stakeholders, and the land further complicate the problem. Uncertainty and social complexity make the unmanaged recreation issue a wicked problem. We describe the wickedness inherent in (...) unmanaged recreation and some of the implications of wickedness for addressing the problem for the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Conclusions about the nature of the problem are based on a problem appraisal that included a literature review and interviews of key informants. Addressing wickedness calls for institutional changes that allow for and reward the use of trust building, inclusive communication, and genuinely collaborative processes. (shrink)

Safety-critical systems manufacturers have the duty of care, i.e., they should take correct steps while performing acts that could foreseeably harm others. Commonly, industry standards prescribe reasonable steps in their process requirements, which regulatory bodies trust. Manufacturers perform careful documentation of compliance with each requirement to show that they act under acceptable criteria. To facilitate this task, a safety-centered planning-time framework, called ACCEPT, has been proposed. Based on compliance-by-design, ACCEPT capabilities permit to design Compliance-aware Engineering Process Plans, which are able (...) to show the planning-time allocation of standard demands, i.e., if the elements set down by the standard requirements are present at given points in the engineering process plan. In this paper, we perform a case study to understand if the ACCEPT produced models could support the planning of space software engineering processes. Space software is safety and mission-critical, and it is often the result of industrial cooperation. Such cooperation is coordinated through compliance with relevant standards. In the European context, ECSS-E-ST-40C is the de-facto standard for space software production. The planning of processes in compliance with project-specific ECSS-E-ST-40C applicable requirements is mandatory during contractual agreements. Our analysis is based on qualitative criteria targeting the effort dictated by task demands required to create a CaEPP for software development with ACCEPT. Initial observations show that the effort required to model compliance and processes artifacts is significant. However, such an effort pays off in the long term since models are, to some extend, reusable and flexible. The coverage level of the models is also analyzed based on design decisions. In our opinion, such a level is adequate since it responds to the information needs required by the ECSS-E-ST-40C framework. (shrink)

The negative impacts of agriculture on the environment and the inequity that limits access to healthy food for the entire population impede sustainable development. This article reflects contributions to food security and alternatives for transitioning to sustainable food systems. It is concluded that food, as a human right, is a complex and transdisciplinary issue, which must be integrated as a transversal axis in the economic, social, environmental, governance, and cultural dimensions to contribute to sustainable development and therefore the convenience of (...) making the transition from the concept of food security to that of food sustainability. (shrink)

Despite widespread knowledge that fraternity members are frequently involved in the sexual assaults of women, fraternities are rarely studied as social contexts-groups and organizations-that encourage the sexual coercion of women. An analysis of the norms and dynamics of the social construction of fraternity brotherhood reveals the highly masculinist features of fraternity structure and process, including concern with a narrow, stereotypical conception of masculinity and heterosexuality; a preoccupation with loyalty, protection of the group, and secrecy; the use of alcohol as a (...) weapon against women's sexual reluctance; the pervasiveness of violence and physical force; and an obsession with competition, superiority, and dominance. Interfraternity rivalry and competition-particularly over members, intramural sports, and women-encourage fraternity men's commodification of women. We conclude that fraternities will continue to violate women socially and sexually unless they change in fundamental ways. (shrink)

It is rare that we have Arthur Schopenhauer and Thomas Hobbes in the same publication, and when this occurs, it is usually aimed at exploring their dissenting political views. However, this study is based on the belief that both philosophers have significant similarities in their theories about the creation of the individual as a human being. Schopenhauer and Hobbes have, in their constructions, the pessimistic view of human nature and, furthermore, there are prominent similarities in the construction of the human (...) machinery, similarities that at times appear to merge. The goals that Hobbes and Schopenhauer had when they wrote their works were different, however, what we show in this study is that pessimism is a prolific path for philosophical theory. (shrink)

This article presents a response to Richard Rorty's paper "Is Philosophy Relevant to Business Ethics?" The author questions Rorty's views on the depreciation of the role of philosophy in applied ethics, and outlines four reasons why philosophy retains its relevance. The author addresses the role of moral reasoning in the development of the moral imagination. The author also concludes that humans have the means necessary to make moral progress and are capable of moral reasoning, and need only to develop a (...) strong moral imagination. (shrink)

Originating as a presidential address during the seventieth birthday celebrations of the British Society for the History of Science, this essay reiterates the society's long-standing commitment to academic autonomy and international cooperation. Drawing examples from my own research into female scientists and doctors during the First World War, I explore how narratives written by historians are related to their own lives, both past and present. In particular, I consider the influences on me of my childhood reading, my experiences as a (...) physics graduate who deliberately left the world of science, and my involvement in programmes to improve the position of women in science. In my opinion, being a historian implies being socially engaged: the BSHS and its members have a responsibility towards the future as well as the past.Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.Søren Kierkegaard,Journals and Papers, 1843. (shrink)

While Martin Buber is best known for his conception of the so-called I-Thou relation, many of his philosophical writings are concerned with the wider realities of communal being together. The aim of this paper is to examine this largely neglected aspect of Buber’s work by focusing on the concept of the “essential We”. As I will argue in this paper, this concept did not develop in a philosophical vacuum, but in critical dialogue with pre-eminent thinkers of the phenomenological tradition. Contra (...) Heidegger, Buber defends the claim that the We must be explored via an investigation of dyadic I-Thou relations. As I further demonstrate, this idea coincides in many respects with Husserl’s approach towards the We, although both conceptualize the I-Thou relation in different ways. While Husserl conceives of the relation between an I and a you as one that foregrounds the similarities between self and other and thereby allows one to adopt a common we-perspective, Buber celebrates the I-Thou relation’s ability to make visible the other person’s particularity and otherness. However, instead of putting these different accounts into competition, I argue that both highlight important features of two distinct forms of group alignment considered in recent social psychology. (shrink)

This paper examines the impact of a week-long philosophy summer camp on middle and high school-age youth with specific attention paid to the development of intellectual humility in the campers. In June 2016 a university in Texas hosted its first philosophy summer camp for youth who had just completed sixth through twelfth grades. Basing our camp on the pedagogical model of the Philosophy for Children program, our aim was specifically to develop a community of inquiry among the campers, providing them (...) with a safe intellectual space to be introduced to philosophy and philosophical discussion. In 2017 we launched a formal longitudinal study to determine what impact a week-long philosophy summer camp would have on teens and tweens. Examining quantitative and qualitative data collected from 2016–2020, we found that the camp has had a significant impact on the teenagers who have attended. In particular, we found that intellectual humility increased over the duration of their camp experience and that this increase correlates with an increased affinity for philosophy and philosophical discussion. (shrink)

This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship, addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on Continental European theories of state and legal systems as it was at home. This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from both the Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newly commissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in a topic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure of Leviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics, metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. (...) Collectively they showcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines both the context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating the degree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition of European humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows that Hobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a tradition of reflection on political theory and governance that is still alive, both in Europe and in the diaspora. (shrink)

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é interpretar o livro Dialética do esclarecimento e seus principais argumentos, considerando a dominação masculina que perpassa a racionalidade moderna. Para isso, sugere-se uma interpretação acerca do entrelaçamento entre mito e esclarecimento, durante o processo de civilização ocidental, indicando que os argumentos de Adorno e Horkheimer tomam a modernidade como um projeto fundamentalmente masculino.This article aims to interpret the book Dialectic of Enlightenment and its main arguments considering the masculine domination which permeates the modern rationality. (...) In order to do this an interpretation about the intertwining between myth and enlightenment during the process of western civilization is suggested, indicating that the arguments of Adorno and Horkheimer take modernity as a fundamentally male project. (shrink)

Places and anniversaries can function as ‘sites of memory’, but three major Newtonian locations – Cambridge, Grantham and London – were also sites of conflict that resonated with wider debates about the nature of genius and the conduct of science. Ritualized celebrations at appropriate times and places helped not only to establish Newton's status as a local hero, national exemplar and scientific genius, but also to promote various versions of national and scientific heritage. By examining changes in how Newton has (...) been commemorated, this paper explores ways in which different protagonists have contributed to and benefited from legendary visions of Newton. (shrink)

This is part 1 of 6 of the dossier What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Queer Death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology and queer theory and tackle questions such as: how can we define queer death studies as a research field? How can queer death studies problematize and rethink the life-death binary? Which notions and hermeneutic tools could be borrowed from other disciplines in order to better (...) define queer death studies? The present article includes the following contributions: – MacCormack P., What does queer death studies mean?; – Radomska M., On queering death studies; – Lykke N., Death as vibrancy; – Hillerup Hansen I., What concreteness will do to resolve the uncertain; – Olson P., Queer objectivity as a response to denials of death; – Manganas N., The queer lack of a chthonic instinct. (shrink)

When customers like Samuel Pepys visited the shop of Thomas Tuttell, instrument maker to the king, they could purchase a pack of mathematical playing-cards. The seven of spades, reproduced as Figure 1, depicted the diverse connotations of magnets, or loadstones. These cards cost a shilling, and were too expensive for many of the surveyors, navigators and other practitioners shown using Tuttell's instruments. They provide an early example of the products promising both diversion and improvement which were increasingly marketed to polite (...) audiences. Tuttell's description of loadstone as ‘a treasure of hidden vertues’ encapsulated many contemporary perceptions of these naturally occurring magnets which were to endure throughout the century. This phrase, with its hints of concealed financial and epistemological benefits, resonates with major eighteenth-century analytical themes, such as commercialization, the opposition between vice and virtue, and the fascination with the occult in the face of Enlightenment rationality. This card is emblematic of the multiple interpretations and utilizations of magnetic phenomena during the eighteenth century. It thus provides a useful starting-point for exploring some of the disputes which arose as enterprising individuals concerned with natural philosophy promoted themselves, their activities and their products. (shrink)

: The author seeks an explanation for Merleau-Ponty's expression "the body understands", to which a real value is applied: the objects of the world have a signification that the body grasps by way of perception. The analysis focuses on Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of perception and on notes from two of his courses, Le monde sensible et le monde de l'expression and La nature. In these works, there is a constant allusion to the I can as an underlying and grounding mode with (...) regard to the I think. The French philosopher thus grants a central role to movement that demonstrates the interweaving of the body with the world. Resumo: O autor busca uma explicação para a expressão "o corpo conhece", de Merleau-Ponty, à qual atribui um valor real: os objetos do mundo têm uma significação que o corpo apreende por meio da percepção. A análise se concentra na Fenomenologia da percepção e nas notas de dois cursos: O mundo sensível e o mundo da expressão e A natureza. Há uma constante alusão ao eu posso como um modo subjacente e fundamental em relação ao eu penso. Daí, o filósofo francês conferir um papel central ao movimento que demonstra o entrelaçamento do corpo com o mundo. (shrink)

Although both Kant and Wittgenstein made claims about the “unknowability” of cognitive subjects, the current practice of assimilating their positions is mistaken. I argue that Allison’s attempt to understand the Kantian self through the early Wittgenstein and McDowell’s linking of Kant and the later Wittgenstein distort rather than illuminate. Against McDowell, I argue further that the Critique’s analysis of the necessary conditions for cognition produces an account of the sources of epistemic nonnativity that is importantly different from McDowell’s own account (...) in terms of a ‘second nature’ created through ‘Bildung’. Finally, I argue that Kant’s epistemic analyses also lead to a model of the cognitive self that answers two contemporary questions: why should we refer to selves at all? in what dies the unity of a subject of thought consist? (shrink)

Informed consent documents are central to the informed consent process and are required for participation in clinical trials in the U.S. The primary purpose of the document is “to assist a prospect...

¿Cuál es el estado de los debates académicos sobre el sexismo en los currículos universitarios de filosofía? La pregunta, así formulada, busca delimitar las principales disputas sobre la incorporación de enfoque de género en los currículos filosóficos en la literatura de la última década. Atendiendo a la revisión sistemática de literatura se realizaron búsquedas en Scopus, Web of Science, Springer, JSTOR, Taylor & Francis y Google Scholar, entre 2012-2022; la estrategia de análisis se centró en los debates recurrentes en el (...) campo. Se analizaron 98 estudios y cinco debates según los cuales las prácticas curriculares excluyentes no permiten la materialización de una educación filosófica inclusiva e intercultural: 1) sesgos implícitos, amenazas por estereotipos y clima hostil, 2) reconocimiento de las mujeres filósofas en el canon y la historia de la filosofía, 3) injusticias epistémicas en la filosofía académica, 4) voces de las mujeres negras en la profesión filosófica y 5) ausencia de las mujeres en la “normalización filosófica” latinoamericana. (shrink)

Este artículo ofrece una revisión sistemática de los debates sobre el anglo-eurocentrismo en los currículos universitarios de filosofía, enfocándose en la necesidad de mayor diversidad cultural. A partir de la revisión de 52 estudios de la última década, se distinguen seis debates principales que develan las implicaciones del anglo-eurocentrismo en la filosofía académica: 1) reconocer el etnocentrismo anglo-eurocéntrico en la identidad disciplinaria de la filosofía, 2) tomarse en serio el multiculturalismo filosófico, 3) recurrir en todo o en parte a las (...) filosofías comparadas, 4) buscar la diversidad mediante la filosofía intercultural, 5) girar la tuerca: de la normalización de la colonialidad filosófica a la interculturalidad nuestroamericana, y 6) incorporar las lecciones africanas contemporáneas para la diversificación del currículo filosófico. El artículo proporciona una guía orientativa de estos debates, resaltando las premisas y tesis en juego. Finalmente, se concluye con la sugerencia de repensar los currículos de los programas académicos de filosofía de las universidades colombianas al compás de la Política de educación superior inclusiva e intercultural. (shrink)

In this article, we present participatory action research as a radical act of humanity: a direct response to real dehumanization of vulnerable communities. We argue, as an enactment of critic...

Considerable attention has focused on studying reviewer agreement via inter-rater reliability (IRR) as a way to assess the quality of the peer review process. Inspired by a recent study that reported an IRR of zero in the mock peer review of top-quality grant proposals, we use real data from a complete range of submissions to the National Institutes of Health and to the American Institute of Biological Sciences to bring awareness to two important issues with using IRR for assessing peer (...) review quality. First, we demonstrate that estimating local IRR from subsets of restricted-quality proposals will likely result in zero estimates under many scenarios. In both data sets, we find that zero local IRR estimates are more likely when subsets of top-quality proposals rather than bottom-quality proposals are considered. However, zero estimates from range-restricted data should not be interpreted as indicating arbitrariness in peer review. On the contrary, despite different scoring scales used by the two agencies, when complete ranges of proposals are considered, IRR estimates are above 0.6 which indicates good reviewer agreement. Furthermore, we demonstrate that, with a small number of reviewers per proposal, zero estimates of IRR are possible even when the true value is not zero. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca sacar a la luz los problemas epistemológicos que entraña, desde una perspectiva de género, la selección del canon literario en que se ha tomado por «natural» la exclusión de numerosos textos femeninos. Partiendo de un concepto sociocultural de «práctica» y distinguiendo entre la científica y laliteraria, se analizan dos poemas (uno de María de San José Salazar y otro de Lope de Vega) en cuya semejanza formal parece no haberse reparado. La indiferencia por el texto femenino, (...) frente a la abrumadora tinta vertida sobre el masculino, puede encontrarse en dos grupos de razones: extradiscursivos (práctica científica) e intradiscursivos (práctica literaria). La principal conclusión apunta a que el poema de Lope de Vega es individualista, universalizante y activo, mientras que el de Salazar ofrece una correlación de categorías que permiten entender la riqueza de una propuesta vital inclusiva, en discordancia con lo que se espera de un texto desde la práctica científica históricamente patriarcal. (shrink)