This provocative study forges new and creative connections between Deleuzian philosophy and contemporary film studies.

In Coldness and Cruelty, Deleuze remarks that masochism may be reflected on from three perspectives: as a pleasure–pain alliance, as an enactment of humiliation and slavery, and as a consideration of the enslavement of contractual relations. Later Deleuze and Guattari consider masochism in terms of an ontology of desire – in terms of virtuality rather than extensity. I argue that while the actualisation of pain might be considered secondary, and is oftentimes portrayed as incidental in popular depictions, it also constitutes (...) the exhaustive/exhausted and refrain functions of masochism so that the masochist might be thought of as the figure of exhaustion. (shrink)

1. Introduction. It is an amazing thing that, unlike pebbles, clouds and stars, the smallest building stones of Nature—the electrons, the protons and the neutrons—are all completely uniform. There seems to be a necessity in Nature for systems of a very special form, and one can wonder now what kind of necessity this is. I believe that this can only be a mathematical necessity, that consequently the principle of Nature is a mathematical one. How else could Nature obey the mathematical (...) laws of physics if it were not because of her own principle? It can be argued that these mathematical laws, like Newtonian mechanics, the classical theory of electromagnetism and the quantum theory of the electron are all some form of beginner's luck, and that continued investigation will reveal Nature as more and more mysterious and irrational. If that were true, one might as well give up the pursuit of physics completely! But on one hand modern physics has discovered what we believe to be the elementary particles of the material world, and on the other hand it comes out that at least a part of these elementary forms obey mathematic laws to a very high degree of accuracy. (shrink)

In this analysis we discuss the change in criteria for triage of patients during three different phases of a pandemic like COVID-19, seen from the critical care point of view. Availability of critical care beds has become a hot topic, and in many countries, we have seen a huge increase in the provision of temporary intensive care bed capacity. However, there is a limit where the hospitals may run out of resources to provide critical care, which is heavily dependent on (...) trained staff, just-in-time supply chains for clinical consumables and drugs and advanced equipment. In the first phase, we can still do clinical prioritisation and decision-making as usual, based on the need for intensive care and prognostication: what are the odds for a good result with regard to survival and quality of life. In the next, the resources are mostly available, but the system is stressed by many patients arriving over a short time period and auxiliary beds in different places in the hospital being used. We may have to abandon admittance of patients with doubtful prognosis. In the last phase, usual medical triage and priority setting may not be sufficient to decrease inflow and there may not be enough intensive care unit beds available. In this phase different criteria must be applied using a utilitarian approach for triage. We argue that this is an important transition where society, and not physicians, must provide guidance to support triage that is no longer based on medical priorities alone. (shrink)

Today’s students are accustomed to a world where information is available on-demand, anywhere and anytime. They bring this expectation to their academic world where they want to work cooperatively and flexibly, using the modern information processing tools and access with which they are familiar. New hardware platforms such as e-Readers and tablet computers have made substantial inroads in the consumer market. E-Readers are becoming more prevalent in universities – replacing the need for physical textbooks, lecturing notes and other academic documents. (...) Many universities are now running pilot programs, while some are already using e-Readers. Tablet computers, apart from their ability to read, edit or create various types of information documents, also offer additional features such as collaborative and social networking services. This empirical research project investigated student perspectives on the educational use of e-Readers and tablets within the University of Cape Town. A questionnaire was distributed to a significant portion of the student population and stratified according to seniority and faculty. Quantitative data was gathered and analysed on themes ranging from awareness to preferences to facilitating conditions around e-Readers within the academic environment. The students sent a clear signal: that they are keen to embrace these new technologies and the advantages they offer. E-Books can be updated automatically and downloaded to e-Readers instantly from almost anywhere in the world. Students feel they would benefit greatly through the use of e-Readers and many believe they are set to replace books completely. Having access to a portable library of information in their backpacks would benefit both students and the environment. However, there are a number of barriers to the comprehensive introduction of these technologies, including the cost of the devices; cost, rights and file format of e-books; the need for a critical mass of textbooks available in digital format and device characteristics such as battery life, and ubiquitous Wi-Fi access. (shrink)

After more than a century of research on glycolysis, we have detailed descriptions of its molecular organization, but despite this wealth of knowledge, linking the enzyme properties to metabolic pathway behavior remains challenging. These challenges arise from multi‐layered regulation and the context and time dependence of component functions. However, when viewed as a system that functions according to the principles of supply and demand, a simplifying theoretical framework can be applied to study its regulation logic and to assess the coherence (...) of experimental interpretations. These principles are universally applicable, as they emphasize the common metabolic tasks of glycolysis: the provision of free‐energy carriers, and precursors for biosynthesis and stress‐related compounds. Here we will review the regulation of multi‐tasking by glycolysis and consider how an understanding of this central metabolic pathway can be pursued using general principles, rather than focusing on the biochemical details of constituent components. (shrink)

Analysis of the Freudian interpretation of the Oedipus myth which functions as a paradigm case for the Oedipus complex reveals the neglect of certain essential details. Moreover, it appears that clinical material as presented by psychoanalysts in support of the Oedipus complex is strongly biased towards the acceptance of the hypothesis that the Oedipus complex is a universal phenomenon. In this article arguments are given that cast serious doubt on the validity of psychoanalytic theory. The author proposes a new interpretation (...) which explains the putative Oedipal conflict in the child as the projection of parental aggression on the child. (shrink)

This article chronicles the process used to transform a content-driven chemistry lab course into a course focused on developing critical-thinking skills. In general, the process described includes the following: 1) determining the needs of the students, 2) understanding the history of the course, 3) identifying some specific critical thinking skills that could be developed in the course, 4) considering how the skills can be taught developmentally, 5) defining criteria for the skills at different levels; 6) revising the lab manual to (...) include explicit critical-thinking definitions, directions and criteria for students, and 7) designing assessments of the students’ critical thinking abilities as defined and practiced in the lab. Six critical thinking skills (testing hypotheses, distinguishing between observationsand inferences, identifying assumptions, drawing conclusions supported by data, evaluating conclusions, and considering alternative explanations of data) were incorporated into the course. The lab manual displaying the results of this transformation is available by request from either the author or the journal editor. (shrink)

The literature on thought experiments has been mainly concernedwith thought experiments that are directed at a theory, be it in aconstructive or a destructive manner. This has led somephilosophers to argue that all thought experiments can beformulated as arguments. The aim of this paper is to drawattention to a type of thought experiment that is not directed ata theory, but fulfills a specific function within a theory. Suchthought experiments are referred to as functional thoughtexperiments, and they are routinely used in (...) applied statistics. An example is given from frequentist statistics, where a thoughtexperiment is required to establish the probability space. It isconcluded that (a) not all thought experiments can be formulated asarguments, and (b) the role of thought experiments is more generaland more important to scientific reasoning than has previouslybeen recognized. (shrink)

Extending a strategy previously used by Clancy, Schacter, McNally, and Pitman , we administered a neutral and a trauma-related version of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm to a sample of women reporting recovered or repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse , women reporting having always remembered their abuse , and women reporting no history of abuse . We found that individuals reporting recovered memories of CSA are more prone than other participants to falsely recalling and recognizing neutral words that were never presented. (...) Moreover, our study is the first to show that this finding even held when trauma-related material was involved. Correlational analyses revealed that fantasy proneness, but not self-reported traumatic experiences and dissociative symptoms were related to false recall and false recognition. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives are increasingly used as a default mechanism to address human rights challenges in a variety of industries. MSI is a designation that covers a broad range of initiatives from best-practice sharing learning platforms to certification bodies and those targeted at addressing governance gaps. Critics contest the legitimacy of the private governance model offered by MSIs. The objective of this paper is to theoretically develop a typology of MSIs, and to empirically analyze the legitimacy of one specific type of (...) MSI, namely industry-specific MSIs. We argue that industry-specific MSIs that set out to govern corporate behavior have great potential to develop legitimacy. We analyze two industry-specific MSIs—the Fair Labor Association and the Global Network Initiative—to get a better understanding of how these MSIs formed, how they define and enforce standards, and how they seek to ensure accountability. Based on these empirical illustrations, we discuss the value of this specific MSI model and draw implications for the democratic legitimacy of private governance mechanisms. (shrink)

Dutch: Bij alle aandacht die er op dit moment is voor de aard van zingevingsvragen is de analogie tussen de betekenis van taal enerzijds en leven en werkelijkheid anderzijds wel opgemerkt, maar nog nergens uitvoerig doorgelicht. Marcel Sarot voorziet in dit gemis door een zorgvuldige analyse van de structurele overeenkomsten tussen verschillende theorieën over beide vormen van betekenis. Vervolgens past hij de gemaakte onderscheidingen toe in een weerlegging van de argumenten tegen de theïstische vorm van zingeving van Elmar D. Klemke (...) en Jaap van Heerden. -/- English: The question of the meaning of life is the subject of a lively scholarly debate both in the Netherlands and abroad. I concentrate on an aspect of this question that has often been mentioned but is still waiting for a careful treatment: the analogy between linguistic meaning and the meaning of life. With respect to linguistic meaning, I distinguish between two types of theories of meaning. According to the first type of theory words are names for concepts and hence also for the structural divisions of reality to which our concepts correspond, and the meaning of a word is the concept (or thing or class of things) to which it refers. According to the second type of theory, words are tools which we use to exercise conceptual skills, and the meaning of a word is the conceptual skill exercised with that word. Corresponding to these theories of linguistic meaning, I distinguish between two types of theories of the meaning of life. According to the first type of theory, externalism, the meaning of life is determined by its relation ("reference") to a transcendent primary determinant of meaning; it is therefore independent of the "use" we make of it. According to the second type of theory, internalism, the meaning of life is determined by the use we make of it: life cannot acquire meaning without our giving meaning to it. Just as the theory which construes words as tools does not imply that we cannot use words to refer to extra-linguistic objects, internalism does not imply that reality does not provide objective grounds upon which to build our meaning. Subjective internalists argue that there is no such ground and that man has to create his own meaning ex nihilo, but objective internalists, most theists among them, argue that there are such grounds. Finally I employ the distinctions made above in a counter-argument against the anti-theistic arguments of two subjective internalists, Jaap van Heerden and Elmar D. Klemke. I show that they mistakenly suppose that the theistic alternative has to be construed along externalist lines, whereas theists themselves construe their theory of meaning along objective internalist lines, which renders it much more plausible. (shrink)

Onderzoek naar idealisme en betrokkenheid onder de Nederlandse bevolking.

Rationalism offers an account of moral properties as a subset of the properties which serve to rationalize right actions, and these properties are fit to be the referents of our moral terms. That fitness can be exploited in constructing an externalist theory of reference determination for these terms. The resulting externalist theory draws support from standard responses to Moral Twin-Earth scenarios. The relevance of these responses to moral semantics has recently beenvigorously challenged by Dowell and by Schroeter and Schroeter. The (...) social character of meaning relations, which can explain the openness of questions about an analysis, may thereby also make Twin-Earth judgements beside the point. But the resources available to translators go beyond semantic competence and it is these resources that nonetheless make the Moral Twin-Earth responses relevant. (shrink)

This volume tackles Gödel's two-stage project of first using Husserl's transcendental phenomenology to reconstruct and develop Leibniz' monadology, and then founding classical mathematics on the metaphysics thus obtained. The author analyses the historical and systematic aspects of that project, and then evaluates it, with an emphasis on the second stage.

An international legal agreement governing the global antimicrobial commons would represent the strongest commitment mechanism for achieving collective action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Since AMR has important similarities to climate change—both are common pool resource challenges that require massive, long-term political commitments—the first article in this special issue draws lessons from various climate agreements that could be applicable for developing a grand bargain on AMR. We consider the similarities and differences between the Paris Climate Agreement and current governance structures for (...) AMR, and identify the merits and challenges associated with different international forums for developing a long-term international agreement on AMR. To be effective, fair, and feasible, an enduring legal agreement on AMR will require a combination of universal, differentiated, and individualized requirements, nationally determined contributions that are regularly reviewed and ratcheted up in level of ambition, a regular independent scientific stocktake to support evidence informed policymaking, and a concrete global goal to rally support. (shrink)

This book offers a new description of the significance of Hesiod's 'myth of the races' for ancient Greek and Roman authors, showing how the most detailed responses to this story go far beyond nostalgia for a lost 'Golden' age or hope of its return. Through a series of close readings, it argues that key authors from Plato to Juvenal rewrite the story to reconstruct 'Hesiod' more broadly as predecessor in forming their own intellectual and rhetorical projects; disciplines such as philosophy, (...) didactic poetry and satire all engage in implicit questions about 'Hesiodic' teaching. The first chapter introduces key issues; the second re-evaluates the account in Hesiod's Works and Days. A major chapter outlines Plato's use of Hesiod through close study of the Protagoras, Republic and Statesman. Subsequent chapters focus on Aratus' Phaenomena and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the final chapter, on the Octavia attributed to Seneca and Juvenal's sixth Satire, broadens ideas of Hesiod's reception in Rome. (shrink)