Indispensable for students of Beauvoir’s philosophy and existentialism, Vintges’s book will prove valuable as well in courses on ethics, postmodernism, and feminist theory." —Ethics "... a highly informative book." —Teaching ...

The evolution of cooperative breeding is complex, and particularly so in humans because many other life history traits likely evolved at the same time. While cooperative childrearing is often presumed ancient, the transition from maternal self-reliance to dependence on allocare leaves no known empirical record. In this paper, an exploratory model is developed that incorporates probable evolutionary changes in birth intervals, juvenile dependence, and dispersal age to predict under what life history conditions mothers are unable to raise children without adult (...) cooperation. The model’s outcome variable (net balance) integrates dependent children’s production and consumption as a function of varying life history parameters to estimate the investment mothers or others have to spend subsidizing children. Results suggest that maternal-juvenile cooperation can support the early transition toward a reduction in birth intervals, a longer period of juvenile dependence, and having overlapping young. The need for adult cooperation is most evident when birth intervals are short and age at net production is late. Findings suggest that the needs of juveniles would not have been an early selective force for adult cooperation. Rather, an age-graded division of labor and the mutual benefits of maternal-juvenile cooperation could be an important, but overlooked step in the evolution of cooperative breeding. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Mary Astell's contributions to the history of feminism, noting her grounding in and departure from Cartesianism and its relation to women.

As a practicing life scientist, Descartes must have a theory of what it means to be a living being. In this paper, I provide an account of what his theoretical conception of living bodies must be. I then show that this conception might well run afoul of his rejection of final causal explanations in natural philosophy. Nonetheless, I show how Descartes might have made use of such explanations as merely hypothetical, even though he explicitly blocks this move. I conclude by (...) suggesting that there is no reason for him to have blocked the use of hypothetical final causes in this way. (shrink)

This 1994 book examines the development of the ideas of the new Austrian school from its beginnings in Vienna in the 1870s to the present. It focuses primarily in showing how the coherent theme that emerges from the thought of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Lachman, Israel Kirzner and a variety of new younger Austrians is an examination of the implications of time and ignorance for economic theory.

In this paper, we reflect upon shame and humiliation as threats to personal and professional integrity and moral agency within contemporary health care. A personal narrative, written by a nurse about a particular shift in a British National Health Service Accident and Emergency Department, is provided as a case study. This is critically reflected and commented upon in dialogue with insights into the nature of shame and humiliation. It is suggested that Accident and Emergency is a locus that is latently (...) prone to dynamics of shame and humiliation, a potential exacerbated within a culture subject to externally‐determined time targets that are enforced by a top‐down system of surveillance and management. The result is that nurses may lose their sense of professional competence and responsibility, moral agency, and integrity, to their own personal detriment, as well as to the detriment of patients with whom they work. Insofar as examining a small part of a whole may suggest insights into the operation and ethos of a very large system, this very particular case study narrative/reflection has some important implications and lessons for the wider organization and provision of health care in Britain and beyond. (shrink)

Newton (1643-1727) es considerado una de las más importantes figuras de la historia de la ciencia moderna. Así como Descartes es considerado el fundador de la moderna filosofía de la subjetividad, Newton es visto como el fundador de la moderna ciencia matemática de la naturaleza, en particular de la mecánica, que ha operado alrededor de dos siglos de manera paradigmática y a la que solemos caracterizar como "física clásica". Aunque Newton no es en modo alguno el único innovador de la (...) ciencia moderna -al lado de él participaron también otros como Copémico, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes-, logró, empero, merced a la introducción de la fuerza de la gravitación, unificar diferentes formas de movimiento, como los terrestres -la caída libre, el movimiento del péndulo, el lanzamiento- y los celestes, -los movimientos de los planetas los cuales con Galileo aún permanecían desconectados unos al lado de otros y demostrarlos como una modificación de la misma fuerza fundamental y dar, gracias a ello, una estructura unitaria, sistemática a la teoría del movimiento. Ningún otro sistema representa de una forma tan fiel el concepto de paradigma de Kuhn, como la mecánica newtoniana. (shrink)

The practice of conducting research online is in its infancy. Consequently there is debate concerning the ethical implications of online data collection. We outline three approaches to online data collection and focus specifically on the issues of consent and anonymity of participants. We conclude that ethical issues raised when planning and implementing online data collection are no different to those raised by more traditional approaches to data collection.

“Reasonable hostility” is a norm of communicative conduct initially developed by studying public exchanges in education governance meetings in local U.S. communities. In this paper I consider the norm’s usefulness for and applicability to a U.S. state-level public hearing about a bill to legalize civil unions. Following an explication of reasonable hostility and grounded practical theory, the approach to inquiry that guides my work, I de-scribe Hawaii’s 2009, 18-hour pub-lic hearing and analyze selected segments of it. I show that this (...) par-ticular public hearing raised de-mands for testifiers on the anti-civil union side of the argument that rea-sonable hostility does not do a good job of addressing. Development of a norm of communication conduct for this practice, as well as others, must engage with the culture and time-specific beliefs that a society holds, beliefs that will shape not only how to argue but what may be argued and what must be assumed about particular categories of persons. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine similarities and divergences between Du Châtelet and Descartes on their endorsement of the use of hypotheses in science, using the work of Condillac to locate them in his scheme of systematizers. I conclude that, while Du Châtelet is still clearly a natural philosopher, as opposed to modern scientist, her conception of hypotheses is considerably more modern than is Descartes’, a difference that finds its roots in their divergence on the nature of first principles.

In ethical theory, different concepts of autonomy can be distinguished. In this article we explore how these concepts of autonomy are combined in theory in the citizenship paradigm, and how this turns out in the practice of care for people with acquired brain injury. The stories of a professional caregiver and a client with acquired brain injury show that the combination of various concepts of autonomy in practice leads to tensions between caregivers and clients. These dynamics are discussed from a (...) care ethics perspective, stressing the importance of relationships and interdependence, as well as paying attention to various, sometimes conflicting, perspectives in a deliberative dialogue. (shrink)

New media can change the way that artifacts are constructed and used. Changes in these artifacts, in turn, will be reflected in work practices and processes. This article draws on an empirical investigation of the impact of computer-based technologies on classical scholarship to discuss some of the ramifications that a switch in medium may have for work. The article defines both traditional and computer-based tools as "packages" that consist of artifacts, skill sets, data, beliefs about the work process, and organizational (...) infrastructures, and applies the package metaphor to understand the multiple levels of changes taking place within classics as the use of textual databanks becomes more prevalent. (shrink)

La problemática está planteada en la perspectiva actual, ante las críticas de la física (teoría de la relatividad), la filosofía (la fenomenología de los estratos subjetivos y vivenciales del tiempo), y las ciencias de la cultura (etnología y filosofía de la religión). Luego se explica la modificación que Kant introduce en el concepto newtoniano del tiempo, y se estudian finalmente las ventajas y las desventajas del tiempo posicional puro de Kant para la estructura modal-temporal, si se quiere pasar de lo (...) subjetivo a lo objetivo del tiempo. (shrink)

The primitive streak establishes the antero‐posterior body axis in all amniote species. It is thought to be the conduit through which mesoderm and endoderm progenitors ingress and migrate to their ultimate destinations. Despite its importance, the streak remains poorly defined and one of the most enigmatic structures of the animal kingdom. In particular, the posterior end of the primitive streak has not been satisfactorily identified in any species. Unexpectedly, and contrary to prevailing notions, recent evidence suggests that the murine posterior (...) primitive streak extends beyond the embryo proper. In its extraembryonic site, the streak creates a node‐like cell reservoir from which the allantois, a universal caudal appendage of all amniotes and the future umbilical cord of placental mammals, emerges. This new insight into the fetal/umbilical relationship may explain the etiology of a large number of umbilical‐associated birth defects, many of which are correlated with abnormalities of the embryonic midline. (shrink)

El artículo describe el paradigma mecanicista que ha orientado la investigación de la naturaleza y el comportamiento técnico del hombre hacia ella en la cultura occidental, el cual ha entrado actualmente en una crisis. La filosofía intenta contraponer un paradigma holístico-organológico para corregir la relación dominante del hombre sobre la naturaleza, de modo que se logre una relación de igualdad. El artículo plantea las implicaciones éticas y las modificaciones de la mentalidad que dicha corrección de paradigma exige.

No existe propiamente en Kant una teoría de la autoconciencia, pero sí hay elementos para ella, aunque problemáticos, por oscilar entre el pasado cartesiano y el desarrollo idealista posterior. Tales elementos hacen parte de la explicación emprendida por Kant, de un sistema del conocimiento objetivo. La estructura de la autoconciencia es la de una autorrelación pensante: comprensiva, yoica o egológica, espontáneamente activa y libre, y autorreflexiva. La referencia objetiva de la autoconciencia orienta la problemática filosófica crítica original de Kant hacia (...) la filosofía-idealista. (shrink)

Recent evidence, from both epidemiological and animal experimental studies, suggest that the very first environment, the intrauterine, is extremely important in determining the future health of the individual. Genetic and ‘lifestyle’ factors impinge on, and can exacerbate, a ‘programming’ effect of an adverse fetal environment. In this review, we present compelling evidence to suggest that one of the major organs affected by an unfavourable prenatal environment is the kidney. Many of the factors that can affect fetal renal development (i.e. exposure (...) to excess glucocorticoids, insufficient vitamin A, protein/calorie malnutrition (in rats) and alterations in the intrarenal renin angiotensinogen system), also produce hypertension in the adult animal. When nephron number is compromised during kidney development, maladaptive functional changes occur and can lead, eventually, to hypertension and/or renal disease. Surprisingly, it is during the very earliest stages of kidney development that the vulnerability to these effects occurs. BioEssays 25:212–220, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)