In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 407-427 [Access article in PDF] Trying (on) Gender:Modern Greek Productions Of Aristophanes'Thesmophoriazusae Gonda Van Steen [Figures]Aristophanes' women in Thesmophoriazusaecomplain that Euripides has portrayed their gender in a bad light: by exposing typical female wrongdoings (to which they comically admit), he has made Athenian men distrust their wives. At their Thesmophoria festival, where they gather in an imitation-male assembly as in a (...) male trial court, the women are ready to sentence Euripides to death. 1 Or, as Euripides evaluates the situation:This very day it will be adjudged (krithesetai):shall Euripides live or shall he die?Kinsman:How could that be? The courts (dikasteria) aren't in session (dikazein) today and the Council isn't sitting.It's the middle day of Thesmophoria!Euripides:And that's exactly why I think I'm done for. (Ar. Thesm. 76-81, trans. Henderson) Once the women learn from Cleisthenes that their sacred festival space has been violated, they interrogate and physically examine Euripides' kinsman. This relative, dressed as a woman, has infiltrated the all-female ritual and trial proceedings to deliver an odd defense of Euripides. Mnesilochus tests and tries on the women's gender. Tests, trials, and tryouts are key themes of this paper, in which I argue that the original play's dynamics of trying and judging gender, gender-crossing, and feminist power are also the faultlines that have affected the modern Greek reception history of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae. 2 [End Page 407]All the characters of the 411 B.C.E.Thesmophoriazusae, both female and male (whether Euripides, Mnesilochus, Cleisthenes, or Agathon), assess gender-bending figures and pass (formal or informal) judgment on them. Even though judging was an activity reserved for men in antiquity, both parties here evaluate each other and each other's appearances and acts, whether public or private, dramatic, literary, or sexual. On the modern Greek stage, this fantasy of judging the opposite or opposing sex, this plot of trying—and trying on—the other gender has been reworked in diverse ways. 3 On a metaphorical level, the modern Greek reception of Thesmophoriazusae frequently mirrored the offstage as well as onstage conditions of sex-based judging, and accepting or rejecting, that have characterized the play's internal dynamics. Thus, the study of the modern Greek revival tradition of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae can shed light on ancient comedy production and enhance philologists' readings of the classical text, even though this tradition is not the result of a historically continuous process.My paper analyzes three trends in the Greek reception history of Thesmophoriazusae from the vantage point of judgment of, and prejudice against, women. It outlines an evolution from an antifeminist to a neutral to a feminist treatment of the original play. Only belatedly did the Greek male theater world deem women "worthy" enough (or "unworthy" enough—in some detractors' eyes) to participate in the making of the Aristophanic revival on stage, whether as actresses, spectators, or theater directors. Greek actresses, female theatergoers, and female stage producers faced real challenges of prejudice and prohibition before they were given access to the modern Greek revival tradition of Thesmophoriazusae. Most of these challenges resembled the problems and barriers to women posed by Greek revivals of Aristophanes' very popular Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae. 4 But, as a comedy inspired by ancient women's rituals and carried by topical, literary, and paratragedic humor, Thesmophoriazusae especially evoked little interest among Greek stage directors, contemporary audiences, and critics. Between the years 1951 and 1998, there were only eight new productions of Thesmophoriazusae at either the Athens or the Epidaurus summer festivals, as opposed to nearly a dozen new productions [End Page 408] of Ecclesiazusae and approximately fifteen new productions (and numerous repeat performances) of Lysistrata. 5The long-perceived problem has been how to make Thesmophoriazusae, with all its idiosyncrasies, not only relevant but also amusing. Late twentieth-century directors, both in Greece and abroad, tend to look for a balance between adhering to the original text and updating the comedy's ritual, literary... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) v-vi [Access article in PDF] ThesmophoriazousaiPrefaceThe American Journal of Philology began the year 1999 (Volume 120.1) with a special issue, the first in AJP's history, devoted to the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre. The guest editors of this volume were Cynthia Damon and Sarolta Takacs. While it has not been the practice of the Journal to publish special issues, it seems appropriate (...) that we do so from time to time when a particularly interesting set of articles on a major theme presents itself. Such special issues are able to cover an author, work, or subject with more range and depth than one individual paper can, and they often contain layers of complexity and interdisciplinary insights that a single author would find it difficult to contribute.This special issue had its origins in the conference "Performing Aristophanes," held at Case Western Reserve University on February 24, 2001. Designed by the University's Theater Arts Department to complement the production of Mary-Kay Gamel's version of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousai, The Julie Thesmo Show, the conference was generously supported by the Baker-Nord Center and by the Susan and Ronald Heller Conferences for the Arts Fund. Two of the articles in this volume, those by Angeliki Tzanetou and Gonda Van Steen, were presented in an earlier version at the conference; others offering presentations were Niall W. Slater, Peter Meineck, John Starks, Jr., and Richard Perloff. Jeffrey Henderson provided incisive comments (which formed the basis for his epilogue in this volume). The other articles included here (Gamel, Scharffenberger, Stehle) were added at a later date.As Henderson points out in his epilogue, the Thesmophoriazousai is the Aristophanic play that has been least explored by scholars. But it has lately received more notice in new translations and a new critical [End Page 5] edition, and the time seems right for a new production of this play with accompanying reflections on its performance history, issues of gender and the body, the limits of a written text, the relationship between tragedy and comedy and between ritual and theatrical representation, and an unpublished, controversial, and relatively unknown translation of this play. Indeed, classicists are now paying more attention to both performance studies/performance criticism and translation as bona fide subdisciplines of classics. It should be noted that this year, for only the second time, the American Philological Association gave the Goodwin Award of Merit to a translation (of several plays of Aristophanes, done for the Loeb Classical Library by Jeffrey Henderson). 1 AJP has in the past year published as Brief Mentions several reviews of contemporary performances of ancient texts.Thus, this special issue marks a new horizon for the American Journal of Philology. I would like to extend my thanks to Mary-Kay Gamel, the guest editor of this volume, for overseeing, editing, coordinating, and encouraging these articles and for her leadership in the fields of performance and performance studies in classics.Barbara K. Gold Editor Note 1. The first award was given in 1977 to Harold Cherniss for his two-part Loeb edition of Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. 13. The award to Henderson was the first time the award was given for a literary translation.... (shrink)

Non-treatment decisions concerning demented patients are complex: in addition to issues concerning the health of patients, ethical and legal issues are involved. This paper describes a method for the development of a guideline that clarifies the steps to be taken in the decision making process whether to forgo curative treatment of pneumonia in psychogeriatric nursing home patients.The method of development consisted of seven steps. Step 1 was a literature study from which ethical, juridical and medical factors concerning the patient's health (...) and prognosis were identified. In step 2, a questionnaire was sent to 26 nursing home physicians to determine the relative importance of these factors in clinical practice. In a meeting of nine experienced physicians , the factors identified in step 2 were confirmed by most of these professionals. To prevent the final guideline being too directive, a concept guideline that included ethical and legal aspects was designed in the form of a “checklist of considerations” . Experts in the fields of nursing home medicine, ethics and law reviewed and commented on the concept guideline . The accordingly adapted “checklist of considerations” was tested in a pilot study , after which all experts endorsed the checklist .The resulting “checklist of considerations” structures the decision making process according to three primary domains: medical aspects, patient's autonomy, and patient's best interest. (shrink)

Wim van der Steen charts conceptual foundations of evolutionary biology and, on the basis of this, he evaluates applications of evolutionary theory outside biology. Philosophical analysis shows that key notions of the theory such as fitness, adaptation, selection, and optimality are empty place-holder concepts that call for context-dependent specifications of meaning. For example, as he points out, the notion of optimality is empty without a specification of constraints. Hence, the controversial thesis that animals perform optimal behaviors as a result (...) of natural selection is meaningless rather than true or false. Analysis shows that many other controversies in evolutionary biology are spurious. Thus, the thesis of genic selectionism, which puts genes at center stage in evolutionary theory, is best reconstructed as an arbitrary conceptualization without substance. Disagreements over the thesis are futile. They reflect preferences for different conceptualizations which are ultimately equivalent. As concepts are properly specified, van der Steen asserts evolutionary theory turns out to be a body of interesting natural history at a low level of generality. General laws of evolution do not exist. Hence, evolutionary approaches do not allow sweeping claims about human nature. Unfortunately, in disciplines outside biology such claims are often defended with evolutionary approaches. Evolutionary theory also cannot serve as a foundation for normative views in ethics or epistemology. This is an important and controversial work for scholars and advanced researchers in biology and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that the following Rule should be part of any characterization of science: Claims concerning specific disputed facts should be endorsed only if they are sufficiently supported by the application of validated methods of research or discovery, and moreover that acceptance of this Rule should lead one to reject religious belief. This paper argues, first, that the Rule, as stated, should not be accepted as it suffers from a number of problems. And second, that even if (...) the Rule were to be acceptable, it should not lead one to reject religious belief. (shrink)

Philosophical theories about reduction and integration in science are at variance with what is happenign in science. A realistic approach to science show that possibilities for reduction and integration are limited. The classical ideal of a unified science has since long been rejected in philosophy. But the current emphasis on interdisciplinary integration in philosophy and in science shows that it survives in a different guise. It is necessary to redress the balance, specifically in biology. Methodological analysis shows that many of (...) the grand interdisciplinary theories involving biology actually represent pseudo-integration covered up by inappropriate, overgeneral concepts. Integrationism is not bad, but it must be kept within reasonable bounds. If the present analysis is appropriate, there will have to be fundamental changes in research strategy both in science and in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Functional explanations are regarded as a special type of explanation by many biologists. Philosophers of science tend to agree that they are weak forms of the common modes of explanation, although the elucidation of the logical structure involved is difficult. The present paper shows that Hempel's reconstruction of functional explanations is inadequate on pragmatic grounds. Thus his conclusion that such explanations are necessarily weak is also objectionable. There is no reason for allotting functional explanations a special logical status.

Science is not value-free and ethics is not fact-free. Science and ethics should be similar, but they are not. The author indicates how research in ethics is to change in the face of this. Ethicists should accommodate empirical work in their programs and they should take heed of methodologies developed in science and philosophy of science. They should abandon the search for a single overarching theory of morality. Controversies in ethics are often spurious for lack of articulate methodological key concepts. (...) For example, disagreements over the value of general theories are misguided since disputants implicitly use different notions of generality and different notions of theory. An appropriate methodology does not suffice for the resolution of controversies but it is indispensable for consensus. The book argues these theses in a general way and applies them to the subject of egoism and altruism in ethics. Further case studies concern the environment and psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

Biology incorporated into other disciplines is often distorted, alarmingly so in some areas of medicine. Together with other forms of bias, this may have detrimental effects for patients depending on medical research for their health. A case study concerning omeprazole (Losec), one of the acid-suppressive drugs against gastric ulcers, and NSAIDs, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, confirms that distorted biology together with biased health care policies foster disasters in current biomedicine and medical practice. In our country, The Netherlands, omeprazole is presumably the (...) most commonly used medication. NSAIDs are also used in large quantities, increasingly since they have become available as analgesic over-the-counter drugs. Unofficial and official sources tend to inform the general public that the drugs promote human health. We argue that their being used on a massive scale is actually a medical disaster. The health of many patients would be served better if the drugs they take were replaced by proper forms of diet, but the pharmaceutical industry, the most potent force affecting medication policies, appears to prevent a shift in the balance from over-medicalization towards healthy life styles. The shift should come from government agencies responsible for regulation in the medication market. Policies of these agencies are now a dismal failure. (shrink)

Grime in a recently developed theory distinguished three basic plant strategies: stress tolerance,ruderality and competition. He relates them to environments characterized in terms of stress and disturbance. Classifications of strategies and environments both are ultimately defined in terms of production. This tends to make the theory tautological. If the theory is to make sense, environments had better be defined in independent terms.

Methodological analysis shows that the concepts of fitness and adaptation are more complex than the literature suggests. Various arguments against ‘adaptationism’ are inadequate since they are couched in terms of unduly simplistic notions.

Governments and companies are increasingly promoting and organizing Responsible Innovation. It is, however, unclear how the seemingly incompatible demands for responsibility, which is associated with care and caution, can be harmonized with demands for innovation, which is associated with risk-taking and speed. We turn to the tradition of virtue ethics and argue that it can be a strong accomplice to Responsible Innovation by focussing on the agential side of innovation. Virtue ethics offers an adequate response to the epistemic and moral (...) complexity in innovation and encourages moral behaviour. We enumerate a number of virtues that people involved in Responsible Innovation would need to cultivate both related to responsibility, such as justice, anticipation, civility and inclusion, and virtues related to innovation, such as courage, dedication, curiosity and creativity. We put forward practical wisdom as a key virtue to regulate relevant virtues and to deal with the tension between responsibility and innovation. Practical wisdom helps an agent to find an appropriate mean in exercising and expressing the other virtues—where the mean is relative to the specific context of action and the role and abilities of the agent. (shrink)

Various philosophers and evolutionary biologists have recently defended the thesis that species are individuals rather than sets. A decade of debates, however, did not suffice to settle the matter. Conceptual analysis shows that many of the key terms involved are ambiguous. Current disagreements should dissolve once this is recognized. Explication of the concepts involved leads to new programs for philosophical research. It could also help biology by showing how extant controversies concerning evolution may have conceptual rather than factual roots.

Chapter 1 Introduction The man was coughing again. Shocked he was as he discovered that his saliva had a reddish taint. Would he have a lung disease after all? Cancer perhaps? Long ago, relatives of his had died from LC, lung cancer.

Apparently factual disagreement on the level at which selection operates often results from different interpretations of the term “selection”. Attempts to resolve terminological problems must come to grips with a dilemma: a narrow interpretation of “selection” may lead to a restricted view on evolution; a broader, less precise, definition may wrongly suggest that “selection” is the centre of a unified, integrated theory of evolution. Different concepts of selection, therefore, should carefully be kept apart.

Philosophy of medicine and its daughter bioethics seldom undertake a critical analysis of live medical science. That is a serious shortcoming since some forms of bias in medical science have a negative impact on health care. Most notably, many areas of medicine focus on a restricted area of biology to the exclusion of ecology. Ecological thinking should lead to fundamental changes in medicine and the philosophy of medicine.

On a common view of evolution, natural selection is the major force that produces evolutionary change. Selection is thought to operate on different types (genotypes or phenotypes) in populations so as to generate differential reproductive survival of these types. This should engender changes in population composition. The conception of selection as a "force" should be considered as a convenient shorthand that easily misleads us. Selection is not a factor over and above items such as temperature regimes, predators, and so forth. (...) These items do causal work in evolutionary processes. The term "selection" is merely an abstract placeholder for them. Differential reproductive survival thus appears to depend on particular environmental items that influence different types in different ways. Such items are properly regarded as the selective agents. On the face of it, selection processes must always be due to the operation of such agents. I argue that this is a mistaken assumption. Processes of selection may well occur in the absence of selective agents. That is because environmental factors may contribute to differential reproductive survival even if they do not affect different genotypes or phenotypes in different ways. Considering the role of the environment in selection, we should distinguish between selective agents and contributive agents. (shrink)

Slavoj Zizek ist einer der prominentesten linken Intellektuellen. Der Sammelband lädt ein, Zizeks Ideen kritisch zu diskutieren, insbesondere sein Verständnis von Politik, politischen Organisationen und dem (vergangenen, gegenwärtigen und zukünftigen) Staat.

Rachlin provides an impressive integrative view of altruism and selfishness that helps us correct older views. He presents a highly general theory, even though he is aware of context-dependence of key notions, including altruism. The context-dependence should extend much farther than Rachlin allows it to go. We had better replace theoretical notions of altruism and selfishness by common sense.

Evolutionary epistemology takes various forms. As a philosophical discipline, it may use analogies by borrowing concepts from evolutionary biology to establish new foundations. This is not a very successful enterprise because the analogies involved are so weak that they hardly have explanatory force. It may also veil itself with the garbs of biology. Proponents of this strategy have only produced irrelevant theories by transforming epistemology's concepts beyond recognition. Sensible theories about “knowledge and biology” should presuppose that various long-standing problems concerning (...) relations between the mental and the physical are solved. Such problems are wrongly disregarded by evolutionary epistemologists. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemologists aim to explain the evolution of cognitive capacities underlying human knowledge and also the processes that generate knowledge, for example in science. There can be no doubt that our cognitive capacities are due in part to our evolutionary heritage. But this is an uninformative thesis. All features of organism have indeed been shaped by evolution. A substantive evolutionary explanation of cognition would have to provide details about the evolutionary processes involved. Evolutionary epistemology has not provided any details. Considering (...) progress of theorizing in science, evolutionary epistemologists have proposed many different analogies between natural selection and selection in science. As yet, the analogies have not been fruitful. The entire program of evolutionary epistemology is programmatic. Evolutionary epistemologists have also moved beyond explanation to justification, the primary issue in traditional epistemology. It turns out that their program presupposes that we can justify knowledge claims in traditional ways. Evolutionary biology is not a proper tool for the justification of beliefs. (shrink)

The overt oviposition rhythm ofLymnaea stagnalis should be regarded as an endogenous one. Despite considerable deviations of its period from 24 hrs, entrainment by 24 hr. external periodicities is possible. Possibly, entrainment is effectuated via a second — covert — internal rhythm. The fact that similar rhythms have not been established before, is probably connected with the nature of the phenomena to which previous studies have generally been limited.

Sober and Brandon et al. disagree about the role of screening-off in the appraisal of theories of natural selection. Some problems disregarded by them are unearthed in this discussion note.

In this article, we critique the ways in which the people involved in the development and application of AI systems often visualize and talk about AI systems. Often, they visualize such systems as shiny humanoid robots or as free-floating electronic brains. Such images convey misleading messages; as if AI works independently of people and can reason in ways superior to people. Instead, we propose to visualize AI systems as parts of larger, sociotechnical systems. Here, we can learn, for example, from (...) cybernetics. Similarly, we propose that the people involved in the design and deployment of an algorithm would need to extend their conversations beyond the four boxes of the _Error Matrix_, for example, to critically discuss _false positives_ and _false negatives_. We present two thought experiments, with one practical example in each. We propose to understand, visualize, and talk about AI systems in relation to a larger, complex reality; this is the requirement of _requisite variety_. We also propose to enable people from diverse disciplines to collaborate around _boundary objects_, for example: a drawing of an AI system in its sociotechnical context; or an ‘extended’ Error Matrix. Such interventions can promote meaningful human control, transparency, and fairness in the design and deployment of AI systems. (shrink)

Research in behaviour genetics uncovers causes of behaviour at the population level. For inferences about individuals we also need to know how genes and the environment affect phenotypes. Behaviour genetics fosters a biased view of individual behaviour since it identifies the environment with psychosocial factors and disregards ecology.

Autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and gastrointestinal disorders such as stomach ulcers are often treated with drugs. NSAIDs, a common treatment in rheumatoid arthritis, may cause stomach ulcers which call for additional medications, notably antacids in the sense of drugs that suppress acid secretion by the stomach. Infection with Helicobacter pylori also plays a role in the ulcers. The infection is typically treated with antibiotics added to antacids. Considering NSAIDs and antacids, we suspect that overmedication is common to the (...) extent that particular diets are a better option. Current research and current treatments with these drugs are also problematic since circadian rhythms are mostly disregarded. All the processes involved in the disorders treated show marked variations in the course of the day. Hence experiments conforming to the guidelines of evidence-based medicine, and treatments in line with them, have outcomes strongly depending on the time factor. This calls for reforms in medicine with fresh inputs from biology. (shrink)

Rosenberg has rightly argued that fitness is supervenient. But he has wrongly assumed that this makes “The fittest survive” nontautologous. Supervenience makes strict reduction impossible. It sheds light on disputes concerning the testability of evolutionary theory.