The article illustrates an alternative topology by taking advantage of the possibilities for new forms of perception in the realm of online virtual worlds. It is based on the outcomes of the ‘Noetic Grace’ project that was held in Linden Lab’s Second Life™ (SL) platform as a part of Yoshikaze project, supported form Humlab, Umeå University. During three months of virtual residency in Yoshikaze studio, the author experimented with different kinds of spatiotemporal awareness formed from the notions of virtuality as (...) expressed during the times of late antiquity. Saint John of Damascus (c. 676–749) was speaking about ‘virtual vision’ when he referred to the concept of ‘noetic grace’. Such an approach raises some fundamental questions about whether virtual worlds can have the potential to alter visual mechanisms in the whole spectrum of imagery; both in its creation as well as in its vision. Technologies of computing can be considered as the most outstanding practice of Descartes’ theories. However even if Cartesian resonance can be regarded as an abstract Logos and as such it is clearly distinguished from the class of the world, its principal effect to western thought was that of its dualism as a deterministic organization. Hence, Euclidian plane with a chosen Cartesian system, the so-called Cartesian plane, became the standard spatial environment. In the dual process model of thinking the forward and backward reasoning can be used to express Euclidian transformations in which the points are detached. Their interaction exists solely to define themselves in relation to the other, rather than to embed themselves in an aggregate space. Nevertheless, scientific progress has demonstrated a source that spurts many kinds of phenomena that are by far distinct from those of a systematic space. Anisotropic and heterogeneous topologies, magnetic flux, non-linear, dynamic systems and emergence are some of the findings that can alter the whole spectrum of human awareness. Consequently, in order to create a being-to-be into virtual worlds, one has to overcome the notion of single-self objectiveness and its systematic space and act as a potential entity released from any references that may set barriers to a formation of a different perception and imagery. (shrink)

The article expounds the concept of substance as a unified system in which all of its properties cannot be determined by its components parts alone. Instead the system as a whole verifies the notion of existence. Everything that exists, noetic and aesthetic, animate or inanimate, is governed by the fundamental status of substance. Hence, none of the parts (humans, angels, rocks, bacteria) can claim for absoluteness against the other. This idea goes back to Ancient Greek scholars, such as Aristotle, while (...) it reaches its climax throughout the Byzantine Philosophy with John of Damascus theories. Accordingly and as the image is concerned, one can encounter this kind of ontology in various artworks, from the frescoes of Lascaux caves, to early Renaissance. Beyond the substance there is the un-substance, which is often confused with western philosophical duality course such as those of the matter and the idea, of the sensible and the intelligible, of the body and the soul and finally of the born and the unborn. Nevertheless, and as for the Byzantine philosophy, these entities are lodged into the unity of the substance irrespective of their tangibility because they all contain some kind of materiality at variance to the immateriality of the un-substance. The most representative version of this theory appears in archaic and late antiquity imagery, a type of imagery that has been scattering into early motion pictures and into late Technoetic practices. (shrink)

Mechanical stimulation has a critical role in the development and maintenance of the skeleton. This function requires the perception of extracellular stimuli as well as their conversion into intracellular biochemical responses. This process is called mechanotransduction and is mediated by a plethora of molecular events that regulate bone metabolism. Indeed, mechanoreceptors, such as integrins, G protein‐coupled receptors, receptor protein tyrosine kinases, and stretch‐activated Ca2+ channels, together with their downstream effectors coordinate the transmission of load‐induced signals to the nucleus and the (...) expression of bone‐related genes. During the past decade, scientists have gained increasing insight into the molecular networks implicated in bone mechanotransduction. In the present paper, we consider the major signaling cascades and transcription factors that control bone and cartilage mechanobiology and discuss the influence of the mechanical microenvironment on the determination of skeletal morphology. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of hope in the epistemology and psychology of Immanuel Kant and Johann Christoph Hoffbauer (1766-1827). The decisive question is how according to Kant hope can impair the objectivity of judgements about future and what are the positive and negative effects of this impairment. While for Kant hope is not essentially considered as an affect, he admits that it could transform into an affect and in this way it can impair the mood and its cognitive faculties (...) negatively. In my paper I examine this argumentations of Kant and their reception in the psychology and psychopathology of Hoffbauer, where hope as affect is even considered as a cause of madness and where Hoffbauer seems to suggest that the clinical state of madness can be effect of inappropriate use of the cognitive faculties of the soul. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of hope in the epistemology and psychology of Immanuel Kant and Johann Christoph Hoffbauer (1766-1827). The decisive question is how according to Kant hope can impair the objectivity of judgements about future and what are the positive and negative effects of this impairment. While for Kant hope is not essentially considered as an affect, he admits that it could transform into an affect and in this way it can impair the mood and its cognitive faculties (...) negatively. In my paper I examine this argumentations of Kant and their reception in the psychology and psychopathology of Hoffbauer, where hope as affect is even considered as a cause of madness and where Hoffbauer seems to suggest that the clinical state of madness can be effect of inappropriate use of the cognitive faculties of the soul. (shrink)

Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk has a place among the early Kantians in Halle as both a theologian and a philosophical thinker. After situating Tieftrunk within this intellectual history and determining his theological and philosophical position, this paper provides a chronological account of the concept of hope—which lies at the basis of Kant’s moral philosophy—in Tieftrunk’s writings on philosophy of religion. In particular, the discussion centers on the relationship between the foundation of hope in the moral law and the exclusion of a (...) legalistic fulfilment of hope. The “love of the law,” which emerges especially in Tieftrunk’s work, takes a prominent position in the interpretation. The investigation is accompanied by an evaluation of Tieftrunk’s role in the early reception of Kant. (shrink)

To assess the effectiveness of Visual Thinking Strategies in medical education curricula, a pretest–posttest experimental study design was used to evaluate the impact of participating in VTS workshops on first-year medical students. A total of forty-one intervention and sixty comparative students completed the study which included the analysis of clinical images followed by a measurement of word count, length of time analyzing images, and quality of written observations of clinical images. VTS training increased the total number of words used to (...) describe clinical images, the time spent analyzing the images, and the number of clinically relevant observations. (shrink)

The parahippocampal cortex and hippocampus are brain structures known to be involved in memory. However, the unique contribution of the parahippocampal cortex remains unclear. The current study investigates memory for object identity and memory of the configuration of objects in patients with small thermo-coagulation lesions to the hippocampus or the parahippocampal cortex. Results showed that in contrast to control participants and patients with damage to the hippocampus leaving the parahippocampal cortex intact, patients with lesions that included the right parahippocampal cortex (...) (RPH) were severely impaired on a task that required learning the spatial configuration of objects on a computer screen; these patients, however, were not impaired at learning the identity of objects. Conversely, we found that patients with lesions to the right hippocampus (RH) or left hippocampus (LH), sparing the parahippocampal cortex, performed just as well as the control participants. Furthermore, they were not impaired on the object identity task. In the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment, healthy young adults performed the same tasks. Consistent with the findings of the lesion study, the fMRI results showed significant activity in the RPH in the memory for the spatial configuration condition, but not memory for object identity. Furthermore, the pattern of fMRI activity measured in the baseline control conditions decreased specifically in the parahippocampal cortex as a result of the experimental task, providing evidence for task specific repetition suppression. In summary, while our previous studies demonstrated that the hippocampus is critical to the construction of a cognitive map, both the lesion and fMRI studies have shown an involvement of the RPH for learning spatial configurations of objects but not object identity, and that this takes place independent of the hippocampus. (shrink)

La fouille du puits 883, menée par la mission française de Kition à Bamboula (2017-2018), a livré de nombreux restes fauniques au sein d’un comblement daté du ive siècle apr. J.‑C. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude collaborative réalisée par des archéozoologues qui ont mis en évidence une grande diversité animale (bétail, carnivores, coquillages, oiseaux, rongeurs, reptiles, poissons). Ce matériel faunique offre l’opportunité d’aborder le paysage animalier d’un secteur de la ville antique dans sa multiplicité, avec des animaux liés (...) directement aux pratiques économiques et domestiques (élevage, consommation carnée, utilisation d’animaux auxiliaires) dont les déchets s’avèrent de différentes natures (alimentaires, équarrissage, cadavres animaux). D’autres espèces, plus discrètes, ont su profiter des déchets et denrées produites par les habitants de ce quartier, témoignant ainsi de la porosité entre contextes urbanisés et environnements naturels. (shrink)

Where does consciousness come from and how does it work? Is it a purely biological thing? Where does the brain leave off and the mind begin? These questions, once viewed as ethereal and impossible to study empirically, are now being addressed by science in bold and startling new ways.In Consciousness, world-renowned neuropsychiatrist J. Allan Hobson presents a witty and introspective consideration of this mysterious concept, connecting it to specific areas of the brain and their chemical and physical states. Hobson guides (...) his readers through the various states of waking, dreaming, and nonconsciousness using the theories and data of neuroscience, psychiatry, and neurophysiology. Although his ideas are based in science, his imaginative approach keeps us in touch with the mysterious and seductive nature of his subject.Richly woven, with references to literature, philosophy, and the author's personal experiences, Consciousness is a delightful and compact introduction to a concept central to the human experience. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 8, August 2022.

J. Hillis Miller (1928–2021) was one of the most prominent figures in literary criticism and theory. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University, he taught at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and the University of California at Irvine. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2002. Miller was president of the Modern Language Association of America in 1986 and contributed significantly to professional academic institutions and organizations throughout his career. As an important representative of the Yale School, he had close relationships (...) with Derrida, Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom. Dr. Ning Yizhong did postdoctoral research under his supervision at UCI from 1997 to 1998. This is part of his interviews with Professor Miller during that time. In this interview, Miller talks about the Yale School in general, and Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man and Harold Bloom in particular. 1. (shrink)

Prominent philosophers have argued that contradictions contain either too much or too little information to be useful. We dispute this with what we call the “Paradox of the Two Firefighters.” Suppose you are awakened in your hotel room by a fire alarm. You open the door. You see three possible ways out: left, right, straight ahead. You see two firefighters. One says there is exactly one safe route and it is to your left. The other says there is exactly one (...) safe route and it is to your right. While the two firemen are giving you contradictory information, they are also both giving you the perhaps useful information that there is a safe way out and it is not straight ahead. We give two analyses. The first uses the “Opinion Tetrahedron,” introduced by Dunn as a generalization of Audun Jøsang’s “Opinion Triangle.” The Opinion Tetrahedron in effect embeds the values of the “Belnap-Dunn 4-valued Logic” into a context of subjective probability generalized to allow for degrees of belief, disbelief, and two kinds of uncertainty—that in which the reasoner has too little information and that in which the reasoner has too much information. Jøsang had only a single value for uncertainty. We also present an alternative solution, again based on subjective probability but of a more standard type. This solution builds upon “linear opinion pooling.” Kiefer had already developed apparatus for assessing risk using expert opinion, and this influences the second solution. Finally, we discuss how these solutions might apply to “Big Data” and the World Wide Web. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Scholarship in the area of social movements points to the importance of inter-group collaboration and alliance building. In the case of Indigenous-led movements and the issue of solidarity with non-Indigenous movement participants, scholarship at the intersection of Native studies and social movements suggests that such alliances can be built and sustained but that unlearning colonial attitudes and behaviors is central to this process. Through in-depth interviews with non-Native solidarity participants, this article considers how engagement with Indigenous thought and action (...) re-shapes particpants’ conceptions of environment and place. Findings suggest that such involvement calls attention to histories of violence as well as ongoing practices of dispossession causing activists to grapple not only with their personal and family histories but also with their evolving relationship with environmentalism. (shrink)

People in Belgium want to simplify the electoral laws. The responsible department has a project which is presented as being neutral, having no political implications. The authors compare the results of the last elections computed according to several systems, including the new project. Their conclusion is that the new project is politically oriented : it favours the big parties.The authors propose a new system of ballot which is really neutral, and they show it by a simulation on the results of (...) the elections since 1954.Their system is simple and easily treated by computer. (shrink)

Evolving from both Gifford Pinchot and his utilitarian philosophy of wise use, and John Muir and the preservation philosophy of wilderness, Aldo Leopold espoused--and practices--integrating a degree of wildness into the working agricultural landscape. As newly published essays show, his articulation of "land health" prefigures current definitions of ecosystem health, and the practices he preached anticipate today's prescriptions for ecosystem management. Although the science of ecology has evolved and terminology has changed, Leopold's formulation may help both standardize and institutionalize the (...) concept of ecosystem health, and his example may inspire an ambitious new goal in public and private land management. (shrink)

A Heyting algebra is supplemented if each element a has a dual pseudo-complement \, and a Heyting algebra is centrally supplement if it is supplemented and each supplement is central. We show that each Heyting algebra has a centrally supplemented extension in the same variety of Heyting algebras as the original. We use this tool to investigate a new type of completion of Heyting algebras arising in the context of algebraic proof theory, the so-called hyper-MacNeille completion. We show that the (...) hyper-MacNeille completion of a Heyting algebra is the MacNeille completion of its centrally supplemented extension. This provides an algebraic description of the hyper-MacNeille completion of a Heyting algebra, allows development of further properties of the hyper-MacNeille completion, and provides new examples of varieties of Heyting algebras that are closed under hyper-MacNeille completions. In particular, connections between the centrally supplemented extension and Boolean products allow us to show that any finitely generated variety of Heyting algebras is closed under hyper-MacNeille completions. (shrink)

This article discusses Descartes’s preferred focus on morally and theologically neutral subjects and points out the impact of this focus on the scientific status of theology. It does so by linking Descartes’s method to his transformation of the notion of substance. Descartes’s _Meditations_ centred around epistemological questions rather than non-human intelligences or the life of the mind beyond this world. Likewise, in his early works, Descartes consistently avoided referring to causal operators. Finally, having first redefined the notion of substance in (...) the _Principia,_ Descartes would completely abandon making use of this notion in his later years. Indeed, in contrast to many authors before and after him, Descartes never showed any interest in the long-established metaphysical interpretation of substances as being causal factors of natural change. With God, nature, and mind commonly serving as instances of substantial causality, Descartes’s philosophy had a huge impact on the place of God in science and discreetl. (shrink)

To this day, an adequate interpretation in English of Fichte’s entire philosophy is lacking. Even Frederick Copleston, whose sixty-two pages on Fichte in his History of Philosophy I should recommend as the best general introduction so far available, capitulates at the end before the task of seeing a unity in the thought of this philosopher.

ABSTRACT On 19 July 2019, Agnes Heller died whilst swimming in Lake Balaton outside Budapest. With her passing, the culture of humanity lost one of its most remarkable representatives. So too, contemporary critique lost a philosophical sensibility that is, today, within the neoliberal university, increasingly rare. It is this philosophical sensibility with which this essay is concerned. Through a critical reconstruction of Heller’s reading of three key figures from the philosophical tradition (Marx, Pascal and Kierkegaard), this essay both charts the (...) changes and continuities in Heller’s philosophy of concrete subjectivity and makes a case for its continuing relevance to the cultural project of philosophy. (shrink)

First published in 1952, British Empirical Philosophers is a comprehensive picture of one of the most important movements in the history of philosophic thought. In his introduction, Professor A. J. Ayer distinguishes the main problems of empiricism and gives a critical account of the ways in which the philosophers whose writings are included in this volume attempted to solve them. Editors Ayer and Raymond Winch bring together an authoritative abridgement of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding ; Bishop George Berkeley’s (...) Principles of Human Knowledge ; almost the entire first book of David Hume’s Treatise Concerning Human Nature ; and extracts from Thomas Reid’s Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man and John Stuart Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. (shrink)

In this article we illustrate how trainers and trainees negotiate epistemic and deontic authority within systemic family therapy training. Adult education principles and postmodern imperatives have challenged trainers’ and trainees’ asymmetries regarding knowledge and power, normatively implicated by the institutional training setting. Up-to-date, we lack insight into how trainers and trainees negotiate epistemic and deontic rights in naturally occurring dialog within training. Drawing from discursive psychology and conversation analysis, we present an analysis of eight transcribed, videotaped training seminars from a (...) systemic family therapy training program, featuring three trainers and eleven trainees. Our analysis highlights the dilemmatic ways in which participants resist and affirm the normatively implicated trainers’ deontic and epistemic authority. Trainers are shown as mitigating directives and trainees as resisting them, with both displaying knowing, while attending to concerns about symmetry. We discuss our findings’ implications for systemic family therapy training. (shrink)