Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a philosophical and ethical reflection about quiet quitting as a tool of political resistance for nurses. Quiet quitting is a trend that gained traction on TikTok in July 2022 and emerged as a method of resistance among employees facing increasing demands from their workplaces at the detriment of their personal lives. It is characterised by employees refraining from exceeding the basic requirements outlined in their job descriptions. To understand why quiet quitting can be a tool (...) of resistance useful for nurses, we first draw on Frédéric Gros' concept of ‘surplus obedience’ and Michael Lipsky's notion of ‘routines and simplification strategies’ to highlight the ethical implications associated with nurses engaging in and sustaining harmful systems, such as the neoliberal healthcare system. Leaning again on Gros, we then propose that ‘obedience a minima’, a concept akin to quiet quitting, can serve as a method of ethical nursing resistance. After describing what the concept entails, we provide a discussion emphasising the potential of obedience a minima as a one method, among many, that can be leveraged by nurses to challenge and resist a system that prioritises financial considerations over patient wellbeing. The article concludes by reflecting on the ethical nature of resistance in the context of nursing, that is the act of obeying oneself and refraining from participating in systems that are detrimental to the lives of Others. (shrink)

In the Canadian forensic psychiatric context, the concepts of risk and dangerousness interact, intersect, and morph into the notion of significant threat to the safety of the public. Stemming from the results of a critical ethnography of the Ontario Review Board, this article unpacks the central role of forensic psychiatric nursing, as an example of a 'psych' discipline (e.g., psychiatry and psychology), in a system that is built to produce risky persons and to legitimize their detention and supervision. By using (...) excerpt of interviews conducted with nurses, ethnographic observations of Review Board hearings, and other documentary artifacts, the findings illustrate how rationalizations of risk and dangerousness are contingent on space, time, and observer. Depending on the time of the assessment or on the health‐care professional who performs it, different elements including, but not limited to, mental illness, interpersonal relationships, financial instability, and sexual vulnerability, are relied upon in very fluid, interchangeable, and discretionary ways to justify findings of dangerousness. Such a dynamic expands the reach of psychiatry's legitimacy at identifying risky conduct and controlling risky persons to domains very loosely associated with the notion of dangerousness. The work of Foucault and Castel provides the theoretical backdrop on which rests the discussion and the implications for nursing. (shrink)

Little attention has been paid to the fact that Thomas Reid's epistemology applies to ‘political reasoning’ as well as to various operations of the mind. Reid was interested in identifying the ‘first principles’ of political science as he did with other domains of human knowledge. This raises the question of the extent to which the study of human action falls within the competence of ‘common sense’. Our aim is to reconstruct and assess Reid's epistemology of the sciences of social (...) action and to determine how it connects with the fundamental tenets of his general epistemology. In the first part, we portray Reid as a methodological individualist and focus on the status of the first principles of political reasoning. The second part examines Reid's views on the explanatory power of the principles of human action. Finally, we draw a parallel between Reid's epistemology and the methodology of Weberian sociology. (shrink)

La leçon de la main de Thomas Reid (1710-1796) qui est ici traduite et présentée date de ses années d’enseignement dans la chaire de philosophie morale à Glasgow. Elle consiste en la discussion intransigeante de la « théorie » du titulaire précédent, Adam Smith (1723-1790). Le « système de la sympathie » exposé dans The theory of moral sentiments est l’objet de plusieurs objections, puisées dans l’arsenal que Reid emploie dans son attaque générale contre toutes les formes de sentimentalisme (...) moral qui s’appuient unilatéralement sur la composante affective des évaluations. Le texte montre que Francis Hutcheson et David Hume n’étaient pas les seules cibles de cette critique et met en lumière certaines difficultés et certaines audaces de la « théorie de la morale » d’Adam Smith. (shrink)

In a chapter of his forthcoming book , Laurent Geoffroy, traces the origins of demands for a basic income to the Eighteenth Century English Quaker, Thomas Paine. An obligation to provide financial aid through taxes was quite in keeping with the spirit of the French Revolution. This Babeuf inspired passion for equality still inspires emulation..

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

According to Thomas Reid, powers of will and powers of understanding are distinguishable in thought, but conjoined in practice. This paper examines the claim that there is no inert intelligence, the operations of the understanding involving some degree of activity. The question is: whose activity? For it is clear that a great deal of our mental activity is not in our power. We need to distinguish between a weak and a strong sense of ‘power’, and consider our dependence ‘upon (...) God and the laws of nature’ in our mental exertions. (shrink)

Théodore Jouffroy’s editorial work was exclusively devoted to the introduction and translation of Scottish philosophers: Dugald Stewart’s Outlines of Moral Philosophy, and Thomas Reid’s Complete Works. Our study attempts to determine the meaning of these editions, which Jouffroy did not conceive as a contribution to the history of philosophy, but rather as a reflection on the nature and organisation of philosophical sciences. In the first section of this paper I describe the complex editorial context in which these editions were (...) developed. In the second part, I show, mainly on the basis of the preface to Thomas Reid’s Complete Works, how the relationship between Jouffroy and Victor Cousin evolved. (shrink)

In his Essays on the Active Powers, Thomas Reid criticises Hume 's theory of moral judgment and argues that it is untenable. The aim of this paper is to show that Reid shares more with his target than is ordinarily acknowledged. The author suggests that the opposition between “cognitivism” and “non-cognitivism” concerning the role of feelings in moral judgment tends to obscure assumptions held in common by both philosophers about the nature of feelings.

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 52 Heft: 1 Seiten: 325-363.

Le probleme theologico-politique comprend une diversite de questions qui trouvent cependant leur unite dans la necessite, ou la contrainte, dont la philosophie dans son histoire ne s'est pas defaite: celle de se confronter au religieux, a l'ecclesial et au theologique. Cette confrontation du philosophique et du religieux emprunte plusieurs voies, selon qu'il s'agit pour la philosophie d'examiner la fondation religieuse du politique et plus generalement les relations du pouvoir et du sacre, ou bien de recommander ou de contester l'usage politique (...) du religieux, ou encore d'affirmer la liberte de la croyance contre toute censure. Les etudes ici reunies portent sur les pythagoriciens, Thomas d'Aquin, Jacques 1er d'Angleterre, Milton, Spinoza, Bayle, Toland, Hume, Kant et Rosenzweig, et proposent une perspective traversiere sur les transformations d'une question qui, tout en etant encore la notre, est indissociable d'une histoire. (shrink)

Malebranche’s doctrine of the will can be illuminated by consideration of the views both of Aquinas and early modern would-be Thomists. Three Malebranchian themes are considered here: his conception of the will as an inclination toward general and indeterminate good, his intellectualism (the view that that the locusof morality lies ultimately with the intellect), and his attempt to avoid the extreme views of Jansenism and Quietism, both condemned in the period as theologically unacceptable. Two little-known Thomists in particular are examined: (...) Antonin Massoulié, whose work helps to explain why Malebranche rejected Quietism and the libertarian view of the will typical of it, and Laurent-François Boursier, whom Malebranche criticized for failing to provide a conception of the will and its freedom that avoids Jansenism. (shrink)

Les Eléments de théologie de Proclus constituent un monument philosophique radicalement singulier tant par son architecture propre que par la façon dont la tradition l'a revisité. Ordonnant, sous une forme géométrique, les principes de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne, ils ont à la fois constitué celle-ci en système et opéré comme le principal relais de sa transmission aux pensées byzantine, arabe et occidentale. Ce sont ces effets d'héritage et d'adaptation que les textes ici réunis visent à évaluer. Du Liber de causis à (...) Hegel en passant par Thomas d'Aquin, Dietrich de Freiberg, Giordano Bruno, les Platoniciens de Cambridge et Leibniz, se reconstitue ainsi une a grande chaîne des "êtres", réarticulée par la chaîne des raisons, et à chaque fois revivifiée par celle de la transmission. (shrink)

Les travaux de Régine Le Jan sur la société du haut Moyen Âge ont, par leurs thématiques et leurs approches souvent novatrices, fortement marqué la recherche française et internationale depuis une trentaine d’années. Pour rendre hommage à l’importance de son œuvre, ses élèves, collègues et amis chercheurs lui ont consacré, non pas un, mais deux ouvrages collectifs afin de couvrir l’ensemble de ses thèmes de recherche. Le présent volume constitue le 2e volet de ces Mélanges et comprend trente...

Il s'agit de la recension d'un ouvrage paru en hommage à Michel Morange.

Plural predication is a pervasive part of ordinary language. We can say that some people are fifty in number, are surrounding a building, come from many countries, and are classmates. These predicates can be true of some people without being true of any one of them; they are non-distributive predications. However, the apparatus of modern logic does not allow a place for them. Thomas McKay here explores the enrichment of logic with non-distributive plural predication and quantification. His book will (...) be of great interest to philosophers of language, linguists, metaphysicians, and logicians. (shrink)

In Value and Context Alan Thomas articulates and defends the view that human beings do possess moral and political knowledge but it is historically and culturally contextual knowledge in ways that, say, mathematical or chemical knowledge is not. In his exposition of "cognitive contextualism" in ethics and politics he makes wide-ranging use of contemporary work in epistemology, moral philosophy, and political theory.

A similarity index allowing comparisons of human populations has been defined as the common “Percentage of Isoactive Genes” or PIG, which can be calculated from any gene frequency distribution characterizing two populations. The complement to one of this value has been proved to be a distance, a measure which can be used in most techniques of cluster analysis as well as in usual representations of multivariated data (dendrograms, etc...). Furthermore, the formula can be generalized to a set of populations. From (...) a biological point of vue, PIG values are particularly meaningful, whereas other previously defined indices which tend to measure similarity or difference between populations neither have such an advantage, nor can they be expressed by a single and clear number like a percentage. Moreover,comparisons using PIG indices depend at first on the fluctuations of the most frequent genes of a distribution; on the other hand, different measures principally reflect the variations of low frequency genes, which unfortunately are nearly always poorly estimated, due to weak samples of populations.Interestingly, PIG values can be applied to any frequency distribution of any kind of objects. They can also extend to a whole set of distributions by using a mean value. When applying these measures to a series of polymorphic genetical systems such as ABO, Rhesus, MNSs, Gm and HLA, one can account for the variability or the homogeneity particular to the different human groups, with simple and objective criteria. (shrink)

An overview of the latest interdisciplinary research on human morality, capturing moral sensibility as a sophisticated integration of cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms. Over the past decade, an explosion of empirical research in a variety of fields has allowed us to understand human moral sensibility as a sophisticated integration of cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms shaped through evolution, development, and culture. Evolutionary biologists have shown that moral cognition evolved to aid cooperation; developmental psychologists have demonstrated that the elements that underpin (...) morality are in place much earlier than we thought; and social neuroscientists have begun to map brain circuits implicated in moral decision making. This volume offers an overview of current research on the moral brain, examining the topic from disciplinary perspectives that range from anthropology and neurophilosophy to justice and law. The contributors address the evolution of morality, considering precursors of human morality in other species as well as uniquely human adaptations. They examine motivations for morality, exploring the roles of passion, extreme sacrifice, and cooperation. They go on to consider the development of morality, from infancy to adolescence; findings on neurobiological mechanisms of moral cognition; psychopathic immorality; and the implications for justice and law of a more biological understanding of morality. These new findings may challenge our intuitions about society and justice, but they may also lead to more a humane and flexible legal system. Contributors Scott Atran, Abigail A. Baird, Nicolas Baumard, Sarah Brosnan, Jason M. Cowell, Molly J. Crockett, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Andrew W. Delton, Mark R. Dadds, Jean Decety, Jeremy Ginges, Andrea L. Glenn, Joshua D. Greene, J. Kiley Hamlin, David J. Hawes, Jillian Jordan, Max M. Krasnow, Ayelet Lahat, Jorge Moll, Caroline Moul, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Alexander Peysakhovich, Laurent Prétôt, Jesse Prinz, David G. Rand, Rheanna J. Remmel, Emma Roellke, Regina A. Rini, Joshua Rottman, Mark Sheskin, Thalia Wheatley, Liane Young, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

Ces entretiens permettent de mieux connaître Mario Bunge, originaire de l'Argentine et professeur à l'Université McGill, ainsi que la philosophie moderne et quelques-uns de ses représentants.

Double-effect reasoning (DER) is attributed to Aquinas "tout court". Aquinas's account, however, differs from contemporary DER insofar as Thomas considers the ethical status of "risking" an assailant's life while contemporary accounts focus on actions causing harm inevitably. Since one cannot claim to risk the inevitable, and since there is a significant difference between risking harm and causing harm inevitably. Thomas's account does not extend to cases of inevitable harm. Thus, the received understanding of Aquinas's account is flawed and (...) leads to untenable attributions of the direction of intention to Aquinas and to misunderstandings of contemporary DER. (shrink)

Le livre que le lecteur tient entre les mains est un bréviaire de l'indifférence à la politique. Ce bréviaire, toutefois, ne vise aucune fin édificatrice, ni prosélyte. Il se contente d'être l'exposé fragmentaire d'un soupçon vague : que la politique ne rend pas heureux. Plutôt qu'y dépenser une énergie que nous n'avons pas, ne vaut-il pas mieux nous tourner vers d'autres horizons? Déambulant le long d'une plage des Pouilles, assis à la terrasse d'un café parisien, ou goûtant, depuis le balcon (...) d'un hôtel, la nuit londonienne, nous n'avons que l'embarras du choix. II suffit qu'une jeune fille croise notre chemin pour que la politique s'évanouisse comme un rêve d'hiver. (shrink)

The proliferation of new accounts of infused and acquired virtue in Thomas has brought much welcome attention to his understanding of the relationship between nature and grace. But the very originality of these interpretations has raised a multitude of unanswered questions and difficulties. For any of these accounts to be plausible, they must be accompanied by an account of the way in which Thomas thinks that the specifically one virtue of prudence considers the matter of all virtues, and (...) his statement that such prudence depends on a correct order to the ultimate end. The current disagreement over acquired moral virtue cannot be resolved until these related disagreements are adequately addressed. (shrink)

The role of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in mate choice in humans is controversial. Nowadays, the availability of genetic variation data at genomic scales allows for a careful assessment of this question. In 2008, Chaix et al. reported evidence for MHC‐dependent mate choice among European American spouses from the HapMap 2 dataset. Recently, Derti et al. suggested that this observation was not robust. Furthermore, when Derti et al. applied similar analyses to the HapMap 3 European American samples, they did (...) not see a significant effect. Although some of the points raised by Derti et al. are relevant, we disagree with the reported absence of evidence for MHC‐dependent mate choice within the HapMap samples. More precisely, we show here that the MHC dissimilarity among HapMap 3 European American spouses is still extreme in comparison to the rest of the genome, even after multiple testing correction. This finding supports the hypothesis of MHC‐dependent mate choice in some human populations. (shrink)

As the technological phenomenon known as the worldwide web permeates civilization, it creates some cultures and destroys others. In this pioneering book, philosopher Thomas Langan explores "virtual reality"Can inherently contradictory phrase"and the effects of technology on our very being. In our present-day high- technology environment, making simple, everyday decisions is difficult because the virtual world we've created doesn't necessarily operate according to the old "common sense." To retain our intellectual fitness, we must, Langan argues, consider these essential questions: If (...) virtual reality is, in fact, reality, what is this life that we are caught up in? What is _being_ within the context of virtual reality? How can we establish a system for distinguishing truth from fiction? Although technology minimizes distances between people and makes the information they seek more accessible, it simultaneously blurs the line dividing fact from falsehood and real from virtual. An individual's intellectual survival is threatened as technological advancement challenges our collective understanding of what reality is. Because much of the information that is presented as fact simply works to fulfill a specific agenda, we cannot accept as truth everything that appears on the internet or in the media. To survive, we must learn to manage our lives and resources despite the flood of information we are bombarded with daily. Addressing the general educated reader, _Surviving the Age of Virtual Reality_ expertly interweaves the worlds of technology and philosophy, pushing the analysis of this technological and human phenomenon to new depths. (shrink)

I argue that the essence that is actualized by existence is the essence that is a determinate nature in an individual and not the essence absolutely considered. This essence in individuals has a potential being that is actualized by existence. This thesis has important consequences for the essence/existence distinction in Thomas Aquinas.

Investigates the intent, method and structural unity of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles. The author of this study argues that the intended audience is Christian and that the subject is Christian wisdom.