Exploring Renaissance humanists’ debates on matter, life and the soul, this volume addresses the contribution of humanist culture to the evolution of early modern natural philosophy so as to shed light on the medical context of the ...

This volume brings Bergson's key ideas from Matter and Memory into dialogue with contemporary themes on memory and time in science, across analytic and continental philosophy. Focusing specifically on the application of Bergson's ideas to cognitive science, the circuit between perception and memory receives full explication in 15 different essays. By re-reading Bergson through a cognitive lens, the essays provide a series of alternative analytic interpretations to the standard continental approach to Bergson's oeuvre, without fully discounting either approach. The relevance (...) of philosophies of mind and memory sit alongside the role of a metaphysics of time in exploring connections to psychology, biology, and physics. This eclecticism includes an exciting focus on numerous topics that are not given sufficient attention in extant studies of Bergson, including the precise nature of his ideas on dualism, memory, and ecological theories of perception, especially in relation to his contemporaries. Led by leading Bergson scholars from France and Japan, this book maps the rich terrain of Bergson's contemporary relevance alongside the historical context of his ideas. (shrink)

The neuromodulatory effects of brain stimulation therapies notably involving repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on nocturnal sleep, which is critically disturbed in major depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders, remain largely undetermined. We have previously reported in major depression patients that prefrontal rTMS sessions enhanced their slow wave activity power, but not their sigma power which is related to sleep spindle activity, for electrodes located nearby the stimulation site. In the present study, we focused on measuring the spindle density to investigate cumulative (...) effects of prefrontal rTMS sessions on the sleep spindle activity. Fourteen male inpatients diagnosed with medication-resistant unipolar or bipolar depression were recruited and subjected to 10 daily rTMS sessions targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. All-night polysomnography data was acquired at four time points: Adaptation, Baseline, Post-1, and Post-2. Clinical and cognitive evaluations were longitudinally performed at Baseline, Post-1, and Post-2 time points to explore associations with the spindle density changes. The PSG data from 12 of 14 patients was analyzed to identify sleep spindles across the sleep stages II–IV at four electrode sites: F3, F4, P3, and P4. Statistical analysis by two-way ANOVA revealed that spindle density at F3 increased at Post-1 but decreased at Post-2 time points. Moreover, the local and transient increase of spindle density at F3 was associated with the previously reported SWA power increase at F3, possibly reflecting a shared mechanism of thalamocortical synchronization locally enhanced by diurnal prefrontal rTMS sessions. Clinical and cognitive correlations were not observed in this dataset. These findings suggest that diurnal rTMS sessions transiently modulate nocturnal sleep spindle activity at the stimulation site, although clinical and cognitive effects of the local changes warrant further investigation. (shrink)

In his embryological treatise De plastica seminis facultate , Jacob Schegk , professor of philosophy and medicine at the University of Tübingen, developed, through a unique interpretation of the Aristotelian embryology, a theory of the "plastic faculty" , whose origin lay in the Galenic idea of the formative power. The present study analyses the precise nature of Schegk's theory, by setting it in its historical and intellectual context. It will also discuss the hitherto unappreciated Neoplatonic dimension of Schegk's notion of (...) the soul's vehicle. (shrink)

Inspired by Christian Platonism as developed in the late fifteenth-century Florentine milieu, the French physician Jean Fernel proposed a particular interpretation of Galen in a medico-philosophical work entitled On the Hidden Causes of Things . With this interpretation, he responded to the serious and urgent need for a reconciliation of the newly reconstituted Galen of Renaissance humanism with Christian faith. The present study examines Fernel's strategy and method in constructing this singular Galenic body of doctrine, special attention being given to (...) the roles attributed to the Creator, the formative force, and the soul. Subsequently, an analysis of the notions of spirit and of its innate heat as indispensable instruments of Fernel's physiology will uncover the very target of his criticism of materialism. (shrink)

One of the most striking features of Giordano Bruno’s philosophy is the marriage of universal animation with atomism. This unusual combination produced an extraordinary image of the universe, which was governed by the World-Soul and its universal intellect along with an infinite number of living atoms or corpuscles, animated by their internal spiritual principle. After examining Bruno’s principal arguments on the World-Soul, universal animation and living atoms or corpuscles, this article explores two possible sources among the works of his near-contemporaries. (...) The first author, Agostino Steuco, tried to reconcile the doctrine of the World-Soul with Christianity, integrating the idea of Anaxagoras on the cosmic mind as the demiurgic agent of the universe. The second figure, Jacob Schegk, further elaborated his unusual atomistic or corpuscular reinterpretation of this Presocratic philosopher’s ideas. (shrink)

Inspired by Christian Platonism as developed in the late fifteenth-century Florentine milieu, the French physician Jean Fernel proposed a particular interpretation of Galen in a medico-philosophical work entitled On the Hidden Causes of Things. With this interpretation, he responded to the serious and urgent need for a reconciliation of the newly reconstituted Galen of Renaissance humanism with Christian faith. The present study examines Fernel's strategy and method in constructing this singular Galenic body of doctrine, special attention being given to the (...) roles attributed to the Creator, the formative force, and the soul. Subsequently, an analysis of the notions of spirit and of its innate heat as indispensable instruments of Fernel's physiology will uncover the very target of his criticism of materialism. (shrink)

The treatise On Formative Power of Ferrara's emblematic medical humanist, Nicolò Leoniceno, is the one of the first embryological monographs of the Renaissance. It shows, at the same time, the continuity of medieval Arabo-Latin tradition and the new elements brought by Renaissance medical humanism, namely through the use of the ancient Greek commentators of Aristotle like Simplicius. Thus this treatise stands at the crossroad of these two currents. The present study analyses the range of Leoniceno's philosophical discussion, determines its exact (...) sources and brings to light premises for the early modern development of the concept of formative force, which will end up in the theory of "plastic nature" at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. (shrink)

Organogenesis and metamorphosis require the intricate orchestration of multiple types of cellular interactions and signaling pathways. Glutamate (Glu) is an excitatory extracellular signaling molecule in the nervous system, while Ca2+ is a major intracellular signaling molecule. The first Glu receptors to be cloned are Ca2+‐permeable receptors in mammalian brains. Although recent studies have focused on Glu signaling in synaptic mechanisms of the mammalian central nervous system, it is unclear how this signaling functions in development. Our recent article demonstrated that Ca2+‐permeable (...) AMPA‐type Glu receptors (GluAs) are essential for formation of a photosensitive organ, development of some neurons, and metamorphosis, including tail absorption and body axis rotation, in ascidian embryos. Based on findings in these embryos and mammalian brains, we formed several hypotheses regarding the evolution of GluAs, the non‐synaptic function of Glu, the origin of GluA‐positive neurons, and the neuronal network that controls metamorphosis in ascidians. (shrink)

Summary The famous Jesuit father Athanasius Kircher (1602?1680) tried to interpret the Creation of the world and to explain the origin of life in the last book of his geocosmic encyclopedia, Mundus subterraneus (Amsterdam, 1664?1665). His interpretation largely depended on the ?concept of seeds? which was derived from the tradition of Renaissance ?chymical? (chemical and alchemical) philosophy. The impact of Paracelsianism on his vision of the world is also undeniable. Through this undertaking, Kircher namely developed a corpuscular theory for the (...) spontaneous generation of living beings. The present study examines this theory and its relationship with Kircher's chymical interpretation of the Creation in order to place it in its own intellectual and historical context and will uncover one of its most important sources. (shrink)

The treatise On Formative Power of Ferrara's emblematic medical humanist, Nicolò Leoniceno , is the one of the first embryological monographs of the Renaissance. It shows, at the same time, the continuity of medieval Arabo-Latin tradition and the new elements brought by Renaissance medical humanism, namely through the use of the ancient Greek commentators of Aristotle like Simplicius. Thus this treatise stands at the crossroad of these two currents. The present study analyses the range of Leoniceno's philosophical discussion, determines its (...) exact sources and brings to light premises for the early modern development of the concept of formative force, which will end up in the theory of "plastic nature" at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. (shrink)

We study stable strategy profiles in a pure exchange game of bads, where each player dumps his or her bads such as garbage onto someone else. Hirai et al. (Mathematical Social Sciences 51(2):162–170, 2006) show that cycle dumping, in which each player follows an ordering and dumps his or her bads onto the next player, is a strong Nash equilibrium and that self-disposal is $$\alpha $$ -stable for some initial distributions of bads. In this paper, we show that a (...) strategy profile of bullying, in which all players dump their bads onto a single player, becomes $$\alpha $$ -stable for every exchange game of bads. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a strategy profile to be $$\alpha $$ -stable in an exchange game of bads. In addition, we show that repeating an exchange after the first exchange makes self-disposal stationary. (shrink)

One Seit Platon (mit dem Spott von Diogenes) über Kant ist die Fundamentalfrage "Was ist der Mensch?" bis heute nicht nur von der Philosophie (als regina scientiarum), sondern von der Wissenschaft überhaupt nicht beantwortet. Phänomenologisch hat der Mensch a posteriori physische (somatische), psychische(perceptio, emotio, cognitio), mentale (logische), spirituelle (conscientia, volitio, actio) "Sphären". Ontologisch in Kontext von to ti en einai (Aristoteles) sollte der Mensch a priori ein "Programm" (Information) vor der Kosmogonie haben. Der (Neo‐) Positivismus (z.B. Hume bis Carnap, Russel*; (...) * Nobel Laureate) verwirft Fragen der Metaphysik als Scheinprobleme. Damit bleibt das Menschen‐Wesen in Kontext von Postulaten, wie res cogitans (Descartes), Monaden(Leibniz), "Gott, Freiheit, Unsterblichkeit", Seligkeit und (moralischer) Vollkommenheit (Kant), absoluter Geist (Hegel) in der theologischen Dimension. Antwort könnte eine zukünftige (holistisch‐multidimensionale) philosophische theoretische und Experimentaltheologie (kontrollierbare Beobachtung) durch weitere Forschung geben, in Kontext (bzw. Existenz) von A. Physikotheologie bzw. (a) höhere (als drei) geometrische/physikalische Dimensionen (Hilbert, Riemann /Friedmann, Minkowski, Schmutzer), (b) Paralleluniversen (z.B. L. Randall), (c) Quantentheorie/‐philosophie (Planck*, u.a.), (d) Gravitations‐/Relativitätstheorie (Newton/Einstein*), (e) Vakuumenergie (Sato), etc. B. ChemoBiotheologie bzw. "psychischen" (Fechner) und "spezifischen" (Joh. Müller) Energien,"biologischem Feld" (Gurwitsch), künstlicher Biogenese (Oparin, Fox, Urey*, u.a.; 32 Fragen von John Bernal). C. Psychotheologie bzw. parapsychische Phänomene (Carrel*, Richet*/France, Rhinne/USA, Vassilev, Bechterew/Russia, etc.). D. Religionstheologie: (über‐) Bewußtsein, übersinnliche, immaterielle, supraphysikalische Phänomene (Sri Aurobindo, Dalai Lama*, Konfuzius/Laotse, Gopi Krishna, Papst Benedikt, Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Yogendra, etc.)und ihre physiologische Begründung (Anand/Chinna, Kasamatsu/Hirai, Ornstein, Pauli*, von Weizsäcker, etc.). Damit hängt die ontologische Frage nach dem MenschenWesen mit der Lösung des Problemkomplexes "Gott Geist/Seele Mensch Natur" zusammen. (shrink)