In this contribution, I examine several key publications on the physiology of emotions from the 1860s to the 1930s. I focus on physiologists who studied the emotions prior to and following William James’s 1884 Mind article, by critically reflecting on the conceptual and practical origins and constituents of the Cannon–Bard thalamic theory of emotions. I offer a historical corrective to several major assumptions in our histories of the scientific study of emotions.

In this contribution, I interrogate the historical-intellectual narrative that dominates the history of the Schachter–Singer two-factor theory of emotion. In the first part, I propose that a social influence model became generalized to a cognitive view. I argue that Schachter and Singer presented a cognitive theory of emotions in enacting inside the laboratory Schachter’s preceding “social influence” model of emotions and that Schachter’s adoption of a cognitive model of emotion was driven by and was necessary for his previous research on (...) social influence. In the second part, I argue that the Schachter–Singer theory is remarkable not because it introduced a cognitive turn in emotion, but because it presented sympathetic nervous system activation as an essential constitutive element of every emotion. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the integration of the humanities into “medical humanities” has implicitly medicalized the humanities. This medicalization of the humanities suppresses those dimensions of the humanities that can most significantly contribute to medicine. I present my argument by studying the critical and crucial gap between the humanities as they are presented and taught in the context of medical schools, often as a set of skills, sensitivities, and competencies, and the humanities as they are experienced and lived (...) in the humanities—as an ideological-ethical calling, which saturates and infuses daily life with an ethicizing, politicizing, and ideological critique. It is this core essence of the humanities that is abrogated and annulled in medical humanities. After presenting my argument, I exemplify some of the ways in which my colleagues and I attempt to imbue medical students with the critical and ethicizing outlook and calling of the humanities. (shrink)

In this reply, I focus on the question of whether Cannon’s theory was (only) a “centralized” version of James’s. Due to space limitations, I briefly present six observations that problematize this assertion. One of my guiding principles is that theories acquire their meaning within a particular context. From this historical perspective, and in their historical contexts, the theories were quite distinct.

In this commentary, I briefly present in chronological order several historical developments which can explain some of the confusions with respect to arousal that have become entrenched in the contemporary debate. These historical developments include: Immanuel Kant's eighteenth-century division of the affects into sthenic vs. asthenic; the emergence of modern conceptions of pleasure and displeasure in the West; the nineteenth-century alignment of pleasure and displeasure with “sthenic” and “asthenic” in psycho-physiology; the early-twentieth-century disruption of this nineteenth-century alignment; the establishment of (...) a new-physiological order of emotions; and the emergence of “emotional excitement” as the new feeling of the new emotion order of physiology. (shrink)

In this comment, I indicate several challenges and opportunities—out of the many—for an integrated science–humanities approach to emotions, from the perspective of a historian of the modern science...

The long-awaited revision of the industry standard on phylogenetics Since the publication of the first edition of this landmark volume more than twenty-five years ago, phylogenetic systematics has taken its place as the dominant paradigm of systematic biology. It has profoundly influenced the way scientists study evolution, and has seen many theoretical and technical advances as the field has continued to grow. It goes almost without saying that the next twenty-five years of phylogenetic research will prove as fascinating as the (...) first, with many exciting developments yet to come. This new edition of Phylogenetics captures the very essence of this rapidly evolving discipline. Written for the practicing systematist and phylogeneticist, it addresses both the philosophical and technical issues of the field, as well as surveys general practices in taxonomy. Major sections of the book deal with the nature of species and higher taxa, homology and characters, trees and tree graphs, and biogeography—the purpose being to develop biologically relevant species, character, tree, and biogeographic concepts that can be applied fruitfully to phylogenetics. The book then turns its focus to phylogenetic trees, including an in-depth guide to tree-building algorithms. Additional coverage includes: Parsimony and parsimony analysis Parametric phylogenetics including maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches Phylogenetic classification Critiques of evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, and transformed cladistics Specimen selection, field collecting, and curating Systematic publication and the rules of nomenclature Providing a thorough synthesis of the field, this important update to Phylogenetics is essential for students and researchers in the areas of evolutionary biology, molecular evolution, genetics and evolutionary genetics, paleontology, physical anthropology, and zoology. (shrink)

El propósito de este texto es ofrecer una visión general de la relación entre nación e historia en los debates que se generaron por parte de los historiadores y otros intelectuales de las ciencias sociales a finales del siglo XIX y durante gran parte del siglo XX. La reflexión central que se plantea consiste entonces en estudiar y mostrar cómo al mismo tiempo que las naciones modernas eran objeto de un proceso de redefinición política, en el escenario intelectual de las (...) ciencias sociales, y en particular de los historiadores, fueron apareciendo también un conjunto de debates y obras que intentaban problematizar y someter a consideración las relaciones que pretendían establecerse entre la nación y la historia como un elemento que las justificaba. (shrink)

Interpretation of the classics in political theory seems to go in waves. For a while we had John Locke, the bourgeois thinker. Now we seem to be in a Locke-as-radical-democrat phase. Locke-the-bourgeois had problems of its own, but a radically democratic Locke -- not just the old Locke as liberal democrat but Locke as quasi-Leveller -- strains the interpretative imagination more than most; yet in recent years, several different kinds of argument have been advanced in support of it, both textual (...) and contextual. The most effective argument has proceeded by situating Locke in the context of radical Whig politics in the 1670s and '80s, the struggles over religious toleration and the royal succession, in particular the �Exclusion Crisis� of 1679-81. This contextual argument has been accompanied by various textual interpretations having to do with Locke's conceptions of property, consent, representation, the right of revolution and natural law. Among other things, these are supposed to show that while Locke had nothing explicit to say about the extent of the franchise, the weight of evidence suggests that he would have supported a fairly wide franchise, perhaps even something like the (almost) manhood suffrage advocated by the Levellers (at least according to some, and probably the most convincing, interpretations of their ideas). Most recently, in these pages, Martin Hughes, building on the work of James Tully and Richard Ashcraft in particular, has pushed the argument as far as it can probably go. His argument on taxation and suffrage has provided a motivation here for a wider exploration of Locke's views on representation, consent and the franchise. (shrink)

What is the nature of the intellectual enterprise - general equilibrium analysis - that so many economists regard as the centerpiece of their discipline? In this book, Roy Weintraub considers both the modern history of the analysis, and the methodological puzzles that it, and mathematical economic theory in general, pose. Professor Weintraub argues that previous writings on the history and method of general equilibrium theory have been curiously biased and misleading. He provides a clear and careful presentation of the development (...) of the theory from the 1930s through to the Arrow-Debreu work of the 1950s. This historical analysis is the centre of the book: a case study which permits the author to justify the status of general equilibrium theory in economics and the activity in which economic theorists engage. He argues that previous methodological investigations have been distorted by their use of inappropriate models taken from the philosophy of science that were developed to appraise work in the physical sciences. (shrink)

Most authors who work with moral status automatically dismiss the possibility that plants are the kinds of entities that have moral status. This dismissal coheres with our intuitions about common-sense morality: if plants do not have moral status then we do not have any direct moral obligations to plant life. An implication of such a view is that any suggestion otherwise commits one to be in favour of an absurd conclusion. However, given the recent literature and empirical evidence on plant (...) minds, there are reasons to accept a different perspective that finds the absurd conclusion plausible. (shrink)

Today, economic theory is a mathematical theory, but that was not always the case. Major changes in the ways economists presented their arguments to one another occurred between the late 1930s and the early 1950s; over that period the discipline became mathematized. Professor Weintraub, a noted scholar of the modern history of economic thought, argues that those changes were not merely cosmetic: The mathematical forms of the arguments significantly altered the substance of the arguments. Stabilizing Dynamics is particularly concerned with (...) the ways in which the rich and confusing talk of the 1930s evolved, over a fifteen-year period, into technical analysis of some mathematical structures. The author describes the context for the history of that change, locating it in the broader intellectual currents, and shows how the history of modern economics can be seen as a confluence of several disparate traditions. Historiographically, this book offers one of the first constructivist accounts of modern economic analysis. (shrink)

L'ed. delle Obligationes si basa su quattro mss.: Praha, Knihovni Metropolitni Kapituly, M.CXLV ; Oxford, New College, E 289 ; Praha, Státní Knihóvna CSR, VIII E 11 ; Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, 2358 . Nell'introduzione l'A. prende in esame la tradizione manoscritta delle opere di Giovanni Tarteys, fornendo anche una breve notizia biografica di questo magister artium attivo ad Oxford tra la fine del Trecento e gli inizi del Quattrocento. Segue un'analisi comparata del De Obligationibus di Giovanni con le (...) trattazioni analoghe di altri maestri, tra i quali Rodolfo Strode, Gualterio Burley, Paolo da Venezia e Giovanni Wyclif. Discussi infine i criteri di edizione. (shrink)

Translation of: Introduction áa la philosophie chrâetienne.

Though merely an essay, I challenge you, gentle reader, by attempting to demonstrate that my own words are not fundamentally different from the conscious thoughts in your own mind: I thus claim to have consciousness and qualia.

The author of this study has a single-minded goal--the construction of a social ethic for the Hispanic Pentecostal Church in America that both coheres with the ...

Concerns for safety and security as South Africa’s hosting of 2010 FIFA World Cup draws nearer highlight the degree to which South Africa’s reputation for a relatively peaceful transition from Apartheid has been replaced by its reputation for violent crime. Its transition, and the peacebuilding efforts that followed it, are not completely unrelated to its current high levels of violent crime. In fact, this article argues that there were a number of issues South Africa’s peacebuilding process failed to address that (...) are relevant to the country’s violent crime situation. A significant reason for this failure was an inability or unwillingness to engage the full spectrum of Apartheid’s violence with equal rigour. Apartheid inflicted structural violence, through its racially oppressive laws, as well as physical violence, through enforcing its laws and suppressing its opposition, on the people of South Africa. Peacebuilding in South Africa primarily focused on Apartheid’s physical violence. Through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the focus was narrowed down further to physical political violence. Due to this narrow focus, it did not attend effectively to non-political violence – which includes gender-based violence, the esteem violence had attained during and due to Apartheid, disarming the country of illegal firearms, and narrowing the income gap between the country’s rich and poor. While South Africa proudly claims ownership of its conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes, it still emulated predominant models of building peace through liberal democracy and a market economy. These models have been drawn from Western success stories in diminishing interstate conflict, while South Africa is a developing country that was recovering from an intrastate conflict. Pursuing these models has had benefits for South Africa, but not in many of the ways it needed in order to effectively prevent a surge in criminal violence in the wake of Apartheid. (shrink)