This paper discusses the extent to which governmentality provides a critical visibility of the economy beyond its liberal imaginary. It argues that Foucault’s conceptual and historical understanding of liberal governmentality has two traits that encumber a de-centering of the economy from a Foucauldian perspective. The first obstacle results from a persistent asymmetry of the concept of governmentality as it remains solely geared towards replacing the monolithic account of the state. Governmentality is therefore in danger of rendering the economic invisible instead (...) of advancing an analytics of power appropriate to the specificity of this field. The second impediment relates to how Foucault reads the invisibility of the economy asserted in liberal discourse. While Foucault emphasizes how the “invisible hand” imparts a critical limitation towards the sovereign hubris of total sight, the paper unearths a more complex politics of truth tied to the invisible economy. Drawing on selected historical material, the papers shows that the liberal invisibility of the economy rather functions as a prohibitive barrier towards developing novel and critical visibilities of the economy. A Foucauldian perspective on economy, the paper concludes, benefits from piercing through this double invisibility of the economy. (shrink)

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged into a nucleoprotein complex known as chromatin. The term was introduced in 1879 by German cytologist Walther Flemming. While observing the processes of mitosis in a light microscope, Flemming coined the term to describe the easily stainable threads in the nucleus. He predicted that it would not have a long life: “The word chromatin may serve until its chemical nature is known, and meanwhile stands for that substance in the cell nucleus which is readily stained”. However, (...) Flemming’s prediction did not come true. Although the chemical nature of chromatin—a complex of nucleic acid and proteins—was already elucidated at the end of the 19th century, the.. (shrink)

A revised and enlarged version of Biologen unter Hitler, translated by Thomas Dunlap.

In Goethe's Faust, the poet refers to alchemists' widespread ideas on artificial creation of life in the laboratory. In Faust, such an attempt was not successful: the little man,Homunculus, created by the scholar Wagner through crystallization, was a pure spirit; his form and light disappeared in an attempt to become real life. According to Goethe, life was obviously not a crystal, and he pointed to decisive differences between crystals and organic beings, the latter for example elaborating their food into clear-cut (...) organs and unable to be reconstituted from their ingredients, once destroyed. Thus Goethe's "sensitivity to the 'Gestalt' of the entire complicated organism and his general philosophical attitude .. (shrink)

Mindfulness has emerged as a potential motivator for sustainable lifestyles, yet few studies provide insight into the relationship between mindfulness practice levels and individual engagement in pro-environmental behaviors. We also lack information about the significance of meditators’ behavioral differences in terms of their measurable environmental impact and the motivational processes underlying these differences in pro-environmental performance. We classified 300 individuals in three groups with varying meditation experience and compared their pro-environmental motivations and levels of animal protein consumption. Exceeding prior attempts (...) to compare high-impact behaviors of mindfulness practitioners and non-practitioners, we created the most detailed classification of practice engagement by assessing frequency, experience and type of meditation practice. This nuanced view on mindfulness practice reveals that advanced meditators, who reported high levels of connectedness with nature, subjective happiness and dispositional mindfulness showed significantly more concern for the environment. They also demonstrated the lowest levels of greenhouse gas emissions, land occupation and water use related to their animal-protein consumption. This study is the first to follow a self-determination theory perspective to deepen our understanding of the motivational differences between meditator groups. We revealed that advanced meditators reported significantly more integrated motivation toward the environment than non-meditators. We also provided preliminary evidence for a new theoretical framework suggesting that experiential strategies such as mindfulness practices could strengthen the relational pathway of pro-environmental behaviors. Using sequential mediation analysis, we confirmed that the negative effect of mindful compassion practice on greenhouse gas emissions from animal-protein consumption is partially mediated by CWN and integrated motivation toward the environment. While our study does not support assumptions of causality, it shows that much can be learned by studying the motivations of advanced meditators for maintaining high levels of pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

In contrast to anti-Jewish campaigns at German universities in the 19th century, which met with opposition from liberal scholars, among them prominent chemists, there was no public reaction to the dismissals in 1933. Germany had been an international leader in chemistry until the 1930s. Due to a high proportion of Jewish physicists, chemistry was strongly affected by the expulsion of scientists. Organic and inorganic chemistry were least affected, while biochemistry suffered most. Polymer chemistry and quantum chemistry, of minor importance among (...) the majority of academic chemists was further weakened by the expulsion of renowned scientists. However, a look at the research carried out in Nazi Germany shows that no field of research "emigrated" as such, except research into molecular beams. The reception of emigré chemists differed with respect to their field of research and the degree of competition in the host countries. Thus biochemists and physical chemists were accepted at American universities, whereas organic chemists were not. In contrast, they received high positions in Turkey, Palestine/Israel, and Egypt. After WWII, few emigrés were asked to come back. The delay of the resumption of international contacts by German chemists contributed to the delay in rebuilding in particular German biochemistry, the physical chemistry of polymers, and physical organic chemistry. (shrink)

Dieses Buch verbindet Texte, denen es in jeweils sehr unterschiedlicher Weise um das Einüben in einen anderen Blick auf das menschliche Sein in der Welt, auf das Zusammengehören mit dem bzw. das Hineingehören in das Weltgeschehen geht. Sie führen von der impliziten und expliziten Subjekt-Kritik über die Erfahrung von Anderssein und Vielfalt zu der Frage nach einem sich demgemäß nahelegenden, nicht mehr allgemein-begrifflichen Denken. Ein solches Denken versucht Einsichten wachzurufen und plausibel zu machen, die wir als miteinander in der Welt (...) Lebende immer schon haben. (shrink)

Der Ruf des Esels als offenes Klangobjekt in Robert Bressons Film Au hazard Balthazar (F 1966), der die Bild-Montage insistierend stört, wird in diesem Beitrag in den Kontext der Bioakustik gestellt. Am JA des Esels differenzieren sich Geräusche medial so aus, dass die Grenze zwischen Ding und Kreatur durchlässig wird. Bressons Passion erweist sich damit als Experiment, die akustischen Kanäle der Kommunikation als Transformatoren von Lebewesen, Räumen und jener Übertragung wahrzunehmen, die kybernetisch informierten Tierforschern Sprache heißt. The paper presents the (...) donkey's bray in Robert Bresson's film (F 1966) that disturbs the montage insistently as an open sound object and puts it in the context of bioacoustics. The donkey's hee-haw diversifies noise in such a way that the borderline between object and creature becomes permeable. Bresson's passion proves to be an experiment to perceive the acoustic channels of communication as transformers of animals, spaces and that kind of transmission that researchers informed by cybernetics call »language«. (shrink)

In the course of demographic change, the proportion of older people in many countries is rising continuously and more and more people are experiencing a long time together as a couple. In old age, subjective wellbeing and health aspects are associated with partners’ satisfaction with couple relationship. The need for couple counseling in old age is growing in parallel with demographic developments. However, empirical studies on couple therapy with older people in long-term couple relationships exist to date only to a (...) limited extent. The present contribution deals with this knowledge gap. In an explanative two phases design, research has been conducted with long-term couples in couple counseling of which we would like to present here the central qualitative study. The aim is to be able to describe details of these factors. Older couples who have lived in long-term couple relationships were interviewed after using standardized questionnaires concerning the individual and couple-related stress factors and problems at the beginning and the end of their couple counseling process. Five couples from this study were the interviewees for the following study. The couples were interviewed separately. In this interview study and central part of this contribution, the stress factors, problem areas and coping processes of the older couples were examined. The results serve as a suggestion for further research and can only be interpreted with caution due to the small sample of five case studies: The central results of the study are summarized in a circular process model and are discussed in the light of relevant theoretical approaches. The culmination of massive chronic and acute strains and losses associated with feelings of excessive demands and desperation gave rise to emotional alienation of the partners. In the course of couple therapy, the partners mutually opened their thoughts and emotions and modified their previous dysfunctional pattern of interaction. Thus, emotional and physical rapprochement of the partners was fostered with the effect that subjective load of the partners and dissatisfaction of the couple relationship decreased, and subjective emotional wellbeing increased. To prevent negative emotions and destructive conflicts with their spouse, some of the interviewed partners actively used avoidance strategies in couple interactions. Upon completion of couple therapy changes in the couple relationships appeared instable as soon as overcharging stress factors occurred again. The results suggest that an approach to couple therapy for older people in long-term couple relationships should prioritize emotional safeness and attachment in couple relationship to facilitate constructive conflict management. The couple therapy process should emphasize emotion regulation strategies based on age-related strengths and consider age-related vulnerabilities. Moreover, long-term couples may benefit from catamnestic consultation appointments to consolidate the developed changes. (shrink)

For centuries the question of the origin of life had focused on the question of the spontaneous generation of life, at least primitive forms of life, from inanimate matter, an idea that had been promoted most prominently by Aristotle. The widespread belief in spontaneous generation, which had been adopted by the Church, too, was finally abandoned at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the question of the origin of life became related to that of the artificial generation of life (...) in the laboratory. This paper examines the role of social authorities, researchers’ basic beliefs, crucial experiments, and scientific advance in the controversies about spontaneous generation from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and analyzes the subsequent debates about the synthesis of artificial life in the changing scientific contexts of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It shows that despite the importance of social authorities, basic beliefs, and crucial experiments scientific advances, especially those in microbiology, were the single most important factor in the stepwise abandoning of the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Research on the origin of life and the artificial synthesis of life became scientifically addressed only when it got rid of the idea of constant smooth transitions between inanimate matter and life and explored possible chemical and physical mechanisms of the specificity of basic molecules and processes of life. (shrink)

This article argues that Foucault’s account of the intersection between population, liberal economy, and biopolitics needs to be reconstructed in light of Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Taking Malthus into account brings to the fore how deeply the question of population is tied to a colonial hierarchy that differentiates between dangerous ‘savage’ and economic ‘civilized’ life. ‘Savage life’ is depicted as a catastrophic form of life, which uses resources in a non-economic way due to its forgetfulness of the (...) future. The article shows how this notion of ‘savage life’ broadens the concept of liberal economic governmentality. Most importantly, it highlights the role of passions and futurity for liberal governmentality. As the discussion of Malthus’ texts demonstrates, the passions of hope and fear assume a crucial role for engendering futurity in the economic subject. As will be shown, while the more ‘savage life’ is considered to be made governable through fear, the more civilized life is supposed to be allured by hope. The article points out the implication of this analysis for Foucault’s notion of biopolitics in relation to liberal economy. (shrink)

Dissatisfied with the descriptive and speculative methods of evolutionary biology of his time, the physiologist Jacques Loeb , best known for his “engineering” approach to biology, reflected on the possibilities of artificially creating life in the laboratory. With the objective of experimentally tackling one of the crucial questions of organic evolution, i.e., the origin of life from inanimate matter, he rejected claims made by contemporary scientists of having produced artificial life through osmotic growth processes in inorganic salt solutions. According to (...) Loeb, the answer to the question of whether or not life could be created artificially had to come from macro-molecular chemistry, in particular from the research on the recently discovered DNA. He was convinced that a prerequisite for making living matter from inanimate substances was the chemical synthesis of nuclear material capable of self-replication. Moreover, Loeb, experimentally refuting some vitalistic explanations as well as colloidal chemists’ far-reaching claims that biologically relevant macromolecules follow colloidal rather than chemical laws, pioneered research on the physical and chemical explanations of biological phenomena. (shrink)

Methods and equations for analysing the kinetics of enzyme-catalysed reactions were developed at the beginning of the 20th century in two centres in particular; in Paris, by Victor Henri, and, in Berlin, by Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten. Henri made a detailed analysis of the work in this area that had preceded him, and arrived at a correct equation for the initial rate of reaction. However, his approach was open to the important objection that he took no account of the (...) hydrogen-ion concentration (a subject largely undeveloped in his time). In addition, although he wrote down an expression for the initial rate of reaction and described the hyperbolic form of its dependence on the substrate concentration, he did not appreciate the great advantages that would come from analysis in terms of initial rates rather than time courses. Michaelis and Menten not only placed Henri's analysis on a firm experimental foundation, but also defined the experimental protocol that remains standard today. Here, we review this development, and discuss other scientific contributions of these individuals. The three parts have different authors, as indicated, and do not necessarily agree on all details, in particular about the relative importance of the contributions of Michaelis and Menten on the one hand and of Henri on the other. Rather than force the review into an unrealistic consensus, we consider it appropriate to leave the disagreements visible. (shrink)

Das, was wir umgangssprachlich in einem weiteren Sinne Wirklichkeit nennen, erscheint bei Heidegger wesentlich in zweifacher Gestalt, als Gegenstand von Wissenschaft und besonders Technik einerseits und als Verhältnis von Welt und Dingen, von Sprache und Stille andererseits. Sein Denken verfährt, wenn er in die eine Richtung der Wirklichkeit schaut, kritisch-negierend, in der anderen Richtung dagegen hörend und aufzeigend.

OUTSTANDING PAPER AWARD, Division of the History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society.

This paper gives an overview about the transmission of Greek popular philosophical writings in Ethiopian literature. Information about the historical and religious background in Ethiopia until the 13th century is very scanty, and also the conditions of transmission of Greek philosophy in monastic circles are poorly attested. An analysis of the ambivalent attitude towards Greek philosophy and secular education in Syriac and Coptic monasticism could shed some light on intellectual preconditions in Ethiopian monasteries, because they were significantly influenced by these (...) circles. The manuscript tradition of relevant writings gives us an additional clue which themes and works were preferred among monks in Egypt. Manuscripts containing popular philosophy circulated in the existent network of monasteries in Egypt and Ethiopia, and an increased interest, especially in the 15th/16th centuries, in these writings give rise to their translation from Arabic into Ethiopic. (shrink)

Ephrem's own writings however frequently betray a familiarity with Greek philosophical ideas. This book first introduces Ephrem's intellectual context and his attitude towards learning.

Suls provides a useful review of research interested in the contribution of chronic negative emotions to coronary heart disease. Despite widespread support for a link between negative emotions and the etiology of disease, it is largely unknown if discrete negative emotions, particularly anger, sadness, and anxiety contribute to the development of physical disease in different ways. In this comment, we argue that answering this question will require a more comprehensive analysis of the unique characteristics of discrete emotions as well as (...) conceptually refined assumptions about how discrete emotions develop and change across the adult lifespan. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study investigated age differences in empathic accuracy, the ability to correctly perceive others’ emotions, in a sample of 151 boys and men from three age groups: adolescents, young adults, and middle-aged adults. All participants viewed nine newly developed film clips, each depicting a boy or a man reliving one of three emotions, while talking about an autobiographical memory. Adolescents and middle-aged men were less accurate than young men, and these age differences were associated with parallel age differences in fluid-mechanical (...) abilities. In addition, age differences in vocabulary, one indicator of crystallized-pragmatic intelligence, were associated with age differences in empathic accuracy in adolescent and young, but not middle-aged, men. Within the limitations of cross-sectional data, this study provides evidence for the idea that empathic accuracy is an effortful t... (shrink)