A fascinating property of germ cells is their ability to maintain totipotency throughout development. At fertilization, this totipotency is unleashed and the egg generates all the cell types needed to make a brand new organism. Occasionally, germ cells differentiate precociously in the embryo or in the gonads and form teratomas, tumors containing many differentiated somatic cell types. Until recently, the genetic basis for teratoma formation was not known. The unexpected discovery of a teratoma in a C. elegans double mutant points (...) to translational control as a key mechanism to maintain totipotency in developing germ cells. BioEssays 28: 865–867, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

During the set-up phase of an international study of genetic influences on outcomes from sepsis, we aimed to characterise potential differences in ethics approval processes and outcomes in participating European countries. Between 2005 and 2007 of the FP6-funded international Genetics Of Sepsis and Septic Shock project, we asked national coordinators to complete a structured survey of research ethic committee approval structures and processes in their countries, and linked these data to outcomes. Survey findings were reconfirmed or modified in 2017. Eighteen (...) countries participated in the study, recruiting 2257 patients from 160 ICUs. National practices differed widely in terms of composition of RECs, procedures and duration of the ethics approval process. Eight countries used a single centralised process for approval, seven required approval by an ethics committee in each participating hospital, and three required both. Outcomes of the application process differed widely between countries because of differences in national legislation, and differed within countries because of interpretation of the ethics of conducting research in patients lacking capacity. The RECs in four countries had no lay representation. The median time from submission to final decision was 1.5 months; in nine approval was received within 1 month; six took over 6 months, and in one 24 months; had all countries been able to match the most efficient approvals processes, an additional 74 months of country or institution-level recruitment would have been available. In three countries, rejection of the application by some local RECs resulted in loss of centres; and one country rejected the application outright. The potential benefits of the single application portal offered by the European Clinical Trials Regulation will not be realised without harmonisation of research ethics committee practices as well as national legislation. (shrink)

Aucun mot grec ou latin ne correspond au terme moderne de sexualité, qui n’appartient pas, de fait, aux catégories intellectuelles de l’Antiquité, mais l’étude de la sexualité antique n’en connaît pas moins un grand dynamisme depuis les travaux pionniers de Michel Foucault et Paul Veyne, au début des années 1980. Maître de conférences de littérature latine à l’Université de Bordeaux iii, Géraldine Puccini-Delbey nous en livre le bilan dans un ouvrage consacré à la vie sexuelle des Romains, ré...

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a pervasive difficulty affecting number processing and arithmetic. It is encountered in around 6% of school-aged children. While previous studies have mainly focused on general cognitive functions, the present paper aims to further investigate the hypothesis of a specific numerical deficit in dyscalculia. The performance of 10- and 11-year-old children with DD characterised by a weakness in arithmetic facts retrieval and age-matched control children was compared on various number comparison tasks. Participants were asked to compare a (...) quantity presented in either a symbolic (Arabic numerals, number words, canonical dots patterns) or a nonsymbolic format (noncanonical dots patterns, and random sticks patterns) to the reference quantity 5. DD children showed a greater numerical distance effect than control children, irrespective of the number format. This favours a deficit in the specialised cognitive system underlying the processing of number magnitude in children with DD. Results are discussed in terms of access and representation deficit hypotheses. (shrink)

■ Evidence from functional neuroimaging studies on resting state suggests that there are two distinct anticorrelated cortical systems that mediate conscious awareness: an “extrinsic” system that encompasses lateral fronto-parietal areas and has been linked with processes of external input (external awareness), and an “intrinsic” system which encompasses mainly medial brain areas and..

Le present livre propose l'etude de la constitution, durant le haut Moyen Age latin, d'une position philosophique: le realisme de l'immanence a propos des universaux. Cette position est fondee sur la conviction qu'il existe, dans le monde qui nous entoure, certes des individus particuliers - ce tilleul, cette tortue -, mais aussi des entites universelles. Ces entites n'existent pas separees des individus, mais integralement realisees en eux, sans variation ni degre. Cet engagement philosophique resulte d'une exegese des Categories d'Aristote, reinterpretees (...) selon des philosophemes issus de la pensee de Porphyre. La genealogie de cette position est ici retracee en abordant successivement ses sources tant grecques que latines et ses ancetres patristiques (avant tout Gregoire de Nysse), puis son elaboration conceptuelle durant les premiers siecles du Moyen Age latin jusqu'a la critique qu'en donnera Pierre Abelard, et ce, par l'analyse de l'ontologie des quatre philosophes qui l'ont soutenue: Jean Scot Erigene, Anselme de Canterbury, Odon de Cambrai et Guillaume de Champeaux. Ce parcours permet de dessiner les contours d'un projet philosophique: comprendre, analyser et decrire le monde sensible au moyen des concepts issus de la logique aristotelicienne. (shrink)

With a meta-analysis of 85 studies and 190 experiments, the authors test the relationship between socially responsible investing and financial performance to determine whether including corporate social responsibility and ethical concerns in portfolio management is more profitable than conventional investment policies. The study also analyses the influence of researcher methodologies with respect to several dimensions of SRI on the effects identified. The results indicate that the consideration of corporate social responsibility in stock market portfolios is neither a weakness nor a (...) strength compared with conventional investments; the heterogeneous results in prior studies largely reflect the SRI dimensions under study. (shrink)

Dans l'histoire de la philosophie, la question du temps a été abordée selon deux tendances opposées : le temps de la nature avec Aristote et le temps de la conscience avec Augustin. Ces deux formes irréductibles l'une à l'autre ont vu leur relation se complexifier, notamment avec la théorie de la relativité au début du XXe siècle, puis la mécanique quantique, qui ont bousculé notre perception et compréhension du temps. Cet ouvrage, écrit par des scientifiques et des philosophes, se concentre (...) plus particulièrement sur le concept de " temps naturel ", examiné à la lumière de ses utilisations en sciences, qui semblent remettre en cause son unité. Physique, biologie, sciences cognitives, paléontologie, philosophie sont ici convoquées, chacune de ces disciplines disposant d'instruments spécifiques de mesure et de définition d'échelles de temps. Que nous apprennent-elles sur la " nature du temps ", sur ses propriétés comme la continuité ou l'irréversibilité? Quel statut doit-on donner aux différences entre les échelles utilisées pour observer les phénomènes? Telles sont quelques-unes des questions abordées dans ce livre, nouvelle incursion dans les mystères du temps. (shrink)

Motif déterminant de l’analytique existentiale, le On — das Man — n’est jamais interrogé pour lui-même par les commentateurs de Heidegger ; il fait pourtant de leur part l’objet d’interprétations non seulement très contrastées, mais encore fort éloignées de ce que le penseur allemand semblait avoir envisagé en menant son analyse. D’où la nécessité d’en faire le sujet central d’une réflexion qui, en contrepoint des lectures historique­ment situées et scientifiquement orientées, entend éclairer l’être qui est le sien en le ramenant (...) à son statut d’existential d’un Dasein dont il constitue, toujours et d’emblée, l’ombre portée. (shrink)

Réservant à la pensée de Descartes un traitement plus réservé que l’étude qu’il peut mener de ses autres grands devanciers, Heidegger, à en croire certains commentateurs, dissimulerait mal envers le penseur français son inimitié, celle-ci le prémunissant sans doute du danger de ne pouvoir se relever d’un « cartésianisme inné », dont il fait le reproche aux philosophes. C’est pourtant contre ce préjugé qu’il s’agit ici de lutter en désamorçant, à travers l’éclaircissement de la notion d’ Auseinandersetzung , cet apparent (...) paradoxe : entrant toujours en confrontation avec ses ‘’prédécesseurs’’, jamais pourtant Heidegger n’entre en conflit avec eux. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion of ‘relational values’ from a phenomenological point of view. In the first place, it stresses that in order to make full sense of relational values, we need to approach them through a relational ontology that surpasses dualistic descriptions of the world structured around the subject and the object. With this aim, the paper turns to ecophenomenology's attempt to apprehend values from a first-person perspective embedded in the lifeworld, where our entanglement with other beings is not (...) a theoretical construction but a palpable reality. Overall, the article's main purpose is to show that, in our direct and raw experience, values do not appear as subjective judgments or as objective properties but as events in which we participate alongside other human and non-human beings. (shrink)

Dans cette leçon inaugurale, l'auteur se penche sur l'Évangile, compris au sens large de «promesse», comme objet et comme source de subversion. Deux textes bibliques illustrent chacun de ces deux aspects : le livre de Job et la parabole matthéenne des ouvriers de la onzième heure (Mt 20, 1-16). Une troisième et dernière partie porte sur la relation entre révélation et mystère. Le style oral a été en partie conservé. In this inaugural lecture, delivered on September 24, 2012 at the (...) Faculty of Theology of the University of Geneva, the author develops the theme of the Gospel — understood broadly as «promise» — as both the object and subject of subversion. Two biblical texts are taken as illustrations of these two aspects: the book of Job and Matthew's parable of the vineyard workers of the eleventh hour (Mt 20:1-16). A third and final part focuses on the relation between revelation and mystery. The original style of the lecture has been partly maintained. (shrink)

As a discipline of its own, the philosophy of science can be traced back to the founding of its academic journals, some of which go back to the first half of the twentieth century. While the discipline has been the object of many historical studies, notably focusing on specific schools or major figures of the field, little work has focused on the journals themselves. Here, we investigate contemporary philosophy of science by means of computational text-mining approaches: we apply topic-modeling algorithms (...) to eight major philosophy of science journals, from the 1930s up until 2017. Based on the full-text content of some 15,897 articles, we identified 25 research themes and 8 thematic clusters that show how the research agenda of the philosophy of science has changed in its content over the course of the last eight decades, up to the philosophy of science we now know. We also show how each one of the journals contributed in its own way to this thematic evolution. (shrink)

The explosion of health-related costs in U.S. firms over more than a decade is a huge concern for managers. The initiation of Health and Safety programs at the firm level is an adequate Corporate Social Responsibility initiative to contain this evolution. However, in spite of their documented efficiency, firms underinvest in those programs. This appears as a puzzle for health economists. In this paper, we uncover a strong negative relation of financial leverage to the implementation of H&S programs. The negative (...) impact of debt on investment and CSR activities is generally interpreted as an efficient disciplinary effect of debt on managers. H&S are particularly well suited to revisit this evidence, given their strong profitability and homogeneity across firms. Very interestingly, the negative effect is stronger for firms with high free cash flows, for which debt is used to prevent overinvestment. This strongly suggests that debt, while disciplining managers, also discourages investments which are valuable both for firms and society. (shrink)

The notion of chemical evolution is controversially defined in reference to Darwinian evolution: for some, it is nothing but natural selection applied to chemical systems; yet, for others, it is precisely what happened before natural selection, the latter being the birthmark of life. Taking into account a plurality of evolutionary processes, I propose to construe chemical evolution as a composite theory within which natural selection might only be one of several evolutionary processes.

Physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that everything is physical. According to this thesis, everything in the world, including chemical, biological, mental, and social entities and processes, is constituted by or results from physical entities and processes. In analytic philosophy, one might say that physicalism is the claim that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical.

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant (...) cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture. (shrink)

Nietzsche éducateur est une mine de renseignements non seulement sur l'un des "trois Grands" qui annoncèrent le vingtième siècle, mais une approche originale des problèmes majeurs de notre temps, en particulier dans le domaine si complexe de l'éducation et de l'instruction, où la lucidité du philosophe allemand aide à dépasser les faux problèmes tels que contrainte/liberté, discipline/autonomie, respect/révolte... Christophe Baroni, dans un style limpide, nous présente avec objectivité les diverses facettes du philosophe, et le lave définitivement du soupçon d'avoir (...) été l'inspirateur de la mégalomanie hitlérienne. L'auteur montre aussi comment Nietzsche est interprété par la Nouvelle droite française. Et il donne, sous le titre " Des Surhommes de pacotille", des exemples hallucinants de la mégalomanie délirante de sectes sataniques, en Europe et aux États-Unis - sectes où l'on croit pouvoir se réclamer de Nietzsche et où l'on vit volontiers dans un culte nostalgique des SS... Nietzsche fut au contraire un "bon Européen ", précurseur d'une nouvelle Europe enfin délivrée du " nationalisme de bêtes à cornes", des "folies nationales " : il pressentait que "l'Europe veut devenir une". Nietzsche fut aussi un précurseur de la psychanalyse, un précurseur de la révolution sexuelle de Wilhelm Reich, un précurseur de l'antipsychiatrie et de la non-directivité. (shrink)

We hypothesize that when honesty is not motivated by selfish goals, it reveals social preferences that have evolved for convincing strategically vigilant partners that one is a person worth cooperating with. In particular, we explain how the patterns of dishonest behavior observed in recent experiments can be motivated by preferences for social and self-esteem. These preferences have evolved because they are adaptive in an environment where it is advantageous to be selected as a partner by others and where these others (...) are strategically vigilant: they efficiently evaluate the expected benefit of cooperating with specific partners and attend to their intentions. We specify the adaptive value of strategic vigilance and preferences for social and self-esteem. We argue that evolved preferences for social and self-esteem are satisfied by applying mechanisms of strategic vigilance to one's own behavior. We further argue that such cognitive processes obviate the need for the evolution of preferences for fairness and social norm compliance. (shrink)

L'ouvrage présenté ici est destiné à élaborer une série d'hypothèses quant à l'outillage pour l'analyse sémique afin de proposer une explication originale et plus satisfaisante aux problèmes théoriques posés par la polysémie, en d'autres termes au fait qu'une unité lexicale puisse disposer de plusieurs sens. L'hypothèse centrale s'appuie sur une redéfinition des concepts en vigueur en sémantique, comme le sème, le sémène et les traits sémiques.

À travers des études sur les adjectifs dérivés de noms d'auteur, sur l'usage des expressions figées dans la bande-dessinée et sur leur devenir, mais encore sur des poèmes médiévaux relevant du non-sens, l'auteur s'interroge sur la tension entre propriétés des lexèmes et des textes d'une part et, d'autre part, parcours interprétatifs.

Résumé : De 1870 à 1888, Nietzsche a souvent rappelé les différences fondamentales entre la rythmique grecque et la rythmique moderne. Son analyse du rythme grec se fonde sur trois sources principales : les métriciens modernes, les Anciens, et les théories de Wagner. En 1870–1871, Nietzsche étudie les Elementa rythmica d'Aristoxène de Tarente pour critiquer les théories des philologues modernes ; il accorde en particulier une place centrale au concept rythmique d'alogia, qu'il oppose à l'eurythmie, - XIXe siècle – Nouvel (...) article. (shrink)

Artificial stimulation of the peripheral vestibular system has been shown to improve ownership of body parts in neurological patients, suggesting vestibular contributions to bodily self-consciousness. Here, we investigated whether galvanic vestibular stimulation interferes with the mechanisms underlying ownership, touch, and the localization of one’s own hand in healthy participants by using the “rubber hand illusion” paradigm. Our results show that left anodal GVS increases illusory ownership of the fake hand and illusory location of touch. We propose that these changes are (...) due to vestibular interference with spatial and/or temporal mechanisms of visual-tactile integration leading to an enhancement of visual capture. As only left anodal GVS lead to such changes, and based on neurological data on body part ownership, we suggest that this vestibular interference is mediated by the right temporo-parietal junction and the posterior insula. (shrink)

Les sciences et les techniques sont au coeur de nos vies quotidiennes et constituent les piliers de notre modernité. Elles ont transformé les modes de vie, les relations de pouvoir, nos identités et nos imaginaires. Controverses sur les OGM, enjeux du changement climatique et de sa prévision, nouveaux imaginaires véhiculés par Internet ou les jeux vidéo... Comment analyser dans ces cas qui font l'actualité les liens inextricables entre ce que l'on sait du monde, ce que l'on souhaite y faire et (...) la façon dont on le gouverne? Les théories et approches dominantes de l'économie, de la sociologie, de l'histoire ou de la science politique ont souvent ignoré ces enchevêtrements complexes. Cet ouvrage propose un panorama du champ "sciences, techniques et société", très interdisciplinaire, qui s'est justement donné pour objet l'étude des transformations récentes et conjointes des façons de savoir, des formes d'expertise, des marchés, des espaces publics et des formes de gouvernement. (shrink)

Christophe Vendries Une musicienne et son instrument à cordes sur une stèle funéraire de Dion en Macédoine. Enfin le nablium? p. 469-502 La présence, sur une stèle de Dion d'époque impériale, de la représentation d'un instrument à cordes accompagné de sa dénomination latine permet de préciser nos connaissances à propos du nablium, souvent cité dans la littérature grecque sous le nom de νάβλα, mais dont on ne possédait jusqu'à présent aucune représentation figurée assurée. L'inscription latine qui l'accompagne suggère que (...) la défunte, louée pour son dévouement aux Muses, était vraisemblablement une musicienne de métier. Nous sommes en présence d'un cas très rare où l'inscription sert de légende pour expliquer le décor sculpté de la tombe. (shrink)

The central role of such epistemic concepts as theory, explanation, model, or mechanism is rarely questioned in philosophy of science. Yet, what is their actual use in the practice of science? In this philosophy of science project, we deploy text-mining methods to investigate the usage of 61 epistemic notions in a corpus of full-text articles from the biological and biomedical sciences (N=73,771). The influence of disciplinary context is also examined by splitting the corpus into sub-disciplinary clusters. The results reveal the (...) intricate semantic networks that these concepts actually form in the scientific discourse, not always following our intuitions, at least in some parts of science. The research is published in: Malaterre, Christophe & Martin Léonard. 2023. "Epistemic markers in the scientific discourse", Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

What is philosophy of science? Numerous manuals, anthologies or essays provide carefully reconstructed vantage points on the discipline that have been gained through expert and piecemeal historical analyses. In this paper, we address the question from a complementary perspective: we target the content of one major journal of the field—Philosophy of Science—and apply unsupervised text-mining methods to its complete corpus, from its start in 1934 until 2015. By running topic-modeling algorithms over the full-text corpus, we identified 126 key research topics (...) that span across 82 years. We also tracked their evolution and fluctuating significance over time in the journal articles. Our results concur with and document known and lesser-known episodes of the philosophy of science, including the rise and fall of logic and language-related topics, the relative stability of a metaphysical and ontological questioning (space and time, causation, natural kinds, realism), the significance of epistemological issues about the nature of scientific knowledge as well as the rise of a recent philosophy of biology and other trends. These analyses exemplify how computational text-mining methods can be used to provide an empirical large-scale and data-driven perspective on the history of philosophy of science that is complementary to other current historical approaches. (shrink)

A socioeconomic and demographic analysis of U.S. Google Trends for queries about Business Ethics and Greed is proposed in the context of the 2008 financial crisis. The framework is grounded in the ethical decision-making literature. Two models using micro and macro-type variables are tested using GLM and GEE regression techniques. The frequency of these Google queries varies positively with the ratio of females, educational attainment, younger adult age, some measures of economic hardship or inequalities, and the lesser the weight of (...) the finance industry represented in each State. The frequency of queries intensifies for these same socioeconomic and demographic categories, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. This article is the first to study the salience of business ethics as an issue in the empirical literature using a nationwide database. It also provides a first empirical study in the specialized literature on “ethics in a time of crisis”. This study lays a preliminary groundwork to identify pro-ethical reform segments of the population, with practical use for financial regulatory agencies. (shrink)