There has been a widely perceived sense of a contemporary resurgence of the category of race in western genetics, epidemiology and medicine. In what follows, some important American and British journals in these fields are surveyed for their content from 1946–2003, with the aim of comparatively tracing the use of the race category among American, British and Israeli authors. Three crucial stages are delineated along this time line, and the correlations between the use of the race category and developments in (...) genetics, as well as the changing guidelines for researchers in the USA, are examined. Concepts of individuality and collectivity in the three fields are analysed in relation to the use of ‘race’ in the surveyed journals; there follows also a discussion of some recent critical reflections on that use. It is concluded that there has been both continuity in, and reconstruction of, the roles of ‘race’ within the genetic/medical discourse. (shrink)

Introduction: working together on individuality / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- The work of biological individuality: concepts and contexts / Scott Lidgard and Lynn K. Nyhart -- Cells, colonies, and clones: individuality in the volvocine algae / Matthew D. Herron -- Individuality and the control of life cycles / Beckett Sterner -- Discovering the ties that bind: cell-cell communication and the development of cell sociology / Andrew S. Reynolds -- Alternation of generations and individuality, 1851 / Lynn K. (...) Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- Spencer's evolutionary entanglement: from liminal individuals to implicit collectivities / Snait Gissis -- Biological individuality and enkapsis: from Martin Heidenhain's synthesiology to the völkisch national community / Olivier Rieppel -- Parasitology, zoology, and society in France, ca. 1880-1920 / Michael A. Osborne -- Metabolism, autonomy, and individuality / Hannah Landecker -- Bodily parts in the structure-function dialectic / Ingo Brigandt -- Commentaries: historical, biological, and philosophical perspectives -- Distrust that particular intuition: resilient essentialisms and empirical challenges in the history of biological individuality / James Elwick -- Biological individuality: a relational reading / Scott F. Gilbert -- Philosophical dimensions of individuality / Alan C. Love and Ingo Brigandt. (shrink)

Philosophy of biology before biology -/- Edited by Cécilia Bognon-Küss & Charles T. Wolfe -/- Table of contents -/- Cécilia Bognon-Küss & Charles T. Wolfe. Introduction -/- 1. Cécilia Bognon-Küss & Charles T. Wolfe. The idea of “philosophy of biology before biology”: a methodological provocation -/- Part I. FORM AND DEVELOPMENT -/- 2. Stéphane Schmitt. Buffon’s theories of generation and the changing dialectics of molds and molecules 3. Phillip Sloan. Metaphysics and “Vital” Materialism: The Gabrielle Du Châtelet Circle and French (...) Vitalism 4. John Zammito. The Philosophical Reception of C. F. Wolff’s Epigenesis in Germany, 1770-1790: Herder, Tetens and Kant -/- Part II. ORGANISM & ORGANIZATION 5. François Duchesneau. Senebier and the Advent of General Physiology 6. Tobias Cheung. Organization and Process. Living Systems Between Inner and Outer Worlds: Cuvier, Hufeland, Cabanis. -/- Part III. SYSTEMS 7. Georg Toepfer. Philosophy of Ecology Long Before Ecology: Kant’s Idea of an Organized System of Organized Beings 8. Ina Goy. "All is leaf". Goethe's plant philosophy and poetry 9. Snait Gissis. ‘Biology’, Lamarck, Lamarckisms -/- POSTSCRIPTS 1. Lynn Nyhart. A Historical Proposal Around Prepositions -/- 2. Philippe Huneman. Philosophy after Philosophy of Biology before Biology -/- Cécilia Bognon-Küss and Charles T. Wolfe. Conclusion . (shrink)

This book is parapsychological study of the meaningful coincidence of events, extrasensory perception, and similar phenomena.

Access to abortion services in the United States continues to decline. It does so not because of significant changes in legislation or court rulings but because fewer and fewer physicians wish to perform abortions and because most states now have "conscientious objection" legislation that makes it easy for physicians to refuse to do so. We argue in this paper that physicians have an obligation to perform all socially sanctioned medical services, including abortions, and thus that the burden of justification lies (...) upon those who wish to be excused from that obligation. That is, such persons should have to show how requiring them to perform abortions would represent a serious threat to their fundamental moral or religious beliefs. We use current California law as an example of legislation that does not take physicians' obligations into account and thus allows them too easily to declare conscientious objection. (shrink)

The development of gene-editing technologies, such as the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and associated Cas9 endonuclease system, coincides with a rapidly expanding knowledge of the role of genes in the human ageing process. This raises the prospect that, in addition to the treatment of genetic diseases and disorders, it may become possible to use gene-editing technologies to alter the ageing process and significantly extend the maximum human lifespan. Germline editing poses distinctive problems due to its implications for individual (...) members of future, unborn generations. In this essay, I wish to home in, narrowly, on a single ethical objection to extending the lifespan of future generations by editing the human germline. The objection suggests that to extend lifespans is to unethically inflict the harm of loneliness on future people. I claim that the argument rests on assumptions that ought to be rejected. (shrink)

The Mind in Nature has two central aims. First, that of defending a ‘basic ontology’. Second, having advanced a plausible ontological framework, to appeal to it to cast light on the status of intentionality and the nature of consciousness, paying particular attention to the question of what distinguishes conscious systems from those that are vegetative.Central to Martin's basic ontology is his acceptance of a realist conception of dispositionality. Contrary to the view of David Lewis and others, talk about a thing's (...) dispositions cannot be analysed as talk about a thing's behaviour in a set of counterfactual circumstances. The account of dispositions that emerges from Martin's discussion is one according to which a specific disposition is either actual or it is not. To be actual a disposition need not be manifesting any manifestation. Unmanifesting dispositions are not, therefore, unactualized possibilia – a description which, he observes, is more fitting of unmanifested manifestations. In advancing a realist conception of dispositionality, Martin also opposes those who maintain that dispositional properties reduce to …. (shrink)

Reprint. Originally published: 1959; 1st Princeton/Bollingen pbk. ed. published: 1970.

Diogenes has set itself the task to present to its readers the most recent developments in all important branches of the Humanities. Among the most burning questions in the sphere of contemporary political sciences is the one raised by the almost universal demand for the ‘Welfare State’.The twentieth-century state owes to man not only order, peace, and justice, it owes him also material well-being. The search for and the study of the means by which public power can provide for such (...) well-being have added an important chapter to the history of political theory and the art of government.Professor A. C. Pigou has had a decisive part in the genesis of this great intellectual and moral mutation. He is the uncontested master of the new technique. Diogenes is proud and happy indeed to have the privilege of presenting his original and deep thoughts on the idea of the State as the producer of well-being, on the origins of this concept and the methods of its development. These ideas throw new light on the evolution of the great modern states and put a new and efficient tool into the hands of those who strive to understand and explain this evolution. (shrink)

New technology has a prominent place in the theory and practice of innovation, but the association between high tech and innovation is not inevitable. In this paper, we discuss six metaphorical heroes of agricultural innovation, starting with the dominant hero of frontier science and technology. At first sight, our six heroes can be divided in those who are pro- and those who are anti-technology. Yet in the end technology, and more specifically GM technology, does not emerge as the main issue. (...) Empowering the poor, finding solutions for urgent climate problems, and enhancing the quality of our daily relations to food and the environment – these are the issues the heroes are fighting for. Relations between innovation and technology are better seen as a matter of pragmatic consideration, we will argue. (shrink)

Liebe Frau Henry! Herzlichen Dank für Ihren Brief und für die beiden Artikel Sie sind der erste Mensch, der es meiner Kenntnis nach erreicht hat, dass die Resolutionen in extenso abgedruckt wurden, und ich bin sehr froh, dass es an dieser Stelle gerade geschehen ist. Ich habe mich übrigens mit hiesigen physikalisch-mathematischen Studienräten verabredet, einmal an ihrem Unterricht teilzunehmen und dann das Problem der Stoffbeschränkung in der Physik mit ihnen zu besprechen.

Rawlsians argue for principles of justice that apply exclusively to the basic structure of society, but it can seem strange that those who accept these principles should not also regulate their choices by them. Valid moral principles should seemingly identify ideals for both institutions and individuals. What justifies this nonintuitive distinction between institutional and individual principles is not a moral division of labor but Rawls’s dual commitments to conventionalism and constructivism. Conventionalism distinguishes the relevant ideals for evaluating institutions from those (...) for evaluating actions, while constructivism explains why this distinction is morally fundamental. (shrink)

Rev. ed. of: Analytical psychology: notes of the seminar given in 1925 / by C.G. Jung; edited by William McGuire. c1989.

This volume from the _Collected Works of C.G. Jung_ has become known as perhaps the best introduction to Jung's work. In these famous essays he presented the essential core of his system. This is the first paperback publication of this key work in its revised and augmented second edition. The earliest versions of the essays are included in an Appendices, containing as they do the first tentative formulations of Jung's concept of archetypes and the collective unconscious, as well as his (...) germinating theory of types. (shrink)