Recently it has become clear that integrins and other adhesive receptors play an important role in the control of cell growth and differentiation. In various cell types, anchorage to the extracellular matrix via integrins strongly influences the ability of the cell to respond to soluble mitogens or to differentiation factors. Thus adhesive receptors must generate signals that influence cell behavior. Some of the pathways of adhesion receptor signaling are now beginning to be worked out, but there is still much to (...) learn. In particular, the mechanistic basis for the cooperation between anchorage signals and signals from soluble growth and differentiation factors remains ill‐defined. This review will examine some of the current information linking adhesion receptors to control of mitogenesis and differentiation. (shrink)

In Infinity and the Mind, Rudy Rucker leads an excursion to that stretch of the universe he calls the "Mindscape," where he explores infinity in all its forms: potential and actual, mathematical and physical, theological and mundane. Here Rucker acquaints us with Gödel's rotating universe, in which it is theoretically possible to travel into the past, and explains an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which billions of parallel worlds are produced every microsecond. It is in the realm of infinity, (...) he maintains, that mathematics, science, and logic merge with the fantastic. By closely examining the paradoxes that arise from this merging, we can learn a great deal about the human mind, its powers, and its limitations. Using cartoons, puzzles, and quotations to enliven his text, Rucker guides us through such topics as the paradoxes of set theory, the possibilities of physical infinities, and the results of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. His personal encounters with Gödel the mathematician and philosopher provide a rare glimpse at genius and reveal what very few mathematicians have dared to admit: the transcendent implications of Platonic realism. (shrink)

Anders, Rudi To solve a problem such as wars between nations and civil wars it is necessary to discover what causes the problem.

Ignorance usually excuses from responsibility, unless the person is culpable for the ignorance itself. Since a lot of wrongdoing occurs in ignorance, the question of what makes ignorance culpable is central for a theory of moral responsibility. In this article I examine a prominent answer, which I call the ‘volitionalist tracing account,’ and criticize it on the grounds that it relies on an overly restrictive conception of responsibility‐relevant control. I then propose an alternative, which I call the ‘capacitarian conception of (...) control,’ and on the basis of it I advance an account of culpable ignorance that avoids the skeptical upshots of the volitionalist proposal. If correct, my account establishes three important truths: agents can be directly in control of their ignorance, they can be directly responsible for more than actions and omissions, and their moral obligations extend beyond the performance of intentional actions and omissions. (shrink)

Rudi Visker's book is not only a lucid and elegant survey of Foucault's corpus, from his early work on madness to the History of Sexuality, but also a major intervention in this debate.

An encyclopedia article on the epistemic or knowledge condition for moral responsibility, written for the SEP.

O marxismo aparece insistentemente na teologia e no magistério de Joseph Ratzinger-Bento XVI como um inimigo permanente ao qual o cristianismo deve se contrapor, sem possibilidades de conciliação entre ambos. Mas qual concepção subjaz essa rejeição tão peremptória, tão decidida? Para alcançarmos a resposta a tal questão, aprofundamos a visão de Joseph Ratzinger a partir de alguns de seus escritos teológicos (anteriores ao pontificado) e, em seguida, nas suas três encíclicas, o ponto alto de seu magistério papal ( Deus caritas (...) est, Spe salvi e Caritas in veritate ). Defendemos que a crítica de Bento XVI, antes de ser exclusivamente teológica (ou doutrinária), é filosófica, baseada na racionalidade e não na fé professada pela Igreja, que lhe permite tratar o marxismo não simplesmente como um programa político que vai contra alguns valores cristãos, mas como uma escatologia judaico-cristã secularizada, um messianismo político, portanto, como uma religião , como uma fé , que nega e esvazia o núcleo essencial da fé cristã. E aqui está a raiz da sua oposição. Palavras-chave: Marxismo. Bento XVI. Messianismo. Escatologia política.: Marxism appears repeatedly in Pope Benedict’s theology and teaching as a permanent enemy that Christianity must oppose without any possibilities of conciliation between them. However, what underlies this decisive rejection? To answer this question we look further into Joseph Ratzinger’s perspective starting with some of his theological writings (before the pontificate) followed by three of his encyclicals, the high point of his papal teaching ( Deus caritas est , Spe salvi e Caritas in veritate ). We argue that Benedict XVI's criticism, prior to being purely theological (or doctrinal), is philosophical, based on rationality and not in the faith professed by the Church, allowing him to treat marxism not simply as a political program that goes against some Christian values, but as a secularized Judeo-Christian eschatology, as a political messianism, therefore, as a religion, as a faith , that denies and empties the essential core of the Christian faith. And here is the root of his opposition. Keywords: Marxism. Benedict XVI. Messianism. Political eschatology. (shrink)

Non una pacifica esplorazione ma un’avanscoperta bellicosa, in sardonica guerrilla con alcuni baluardi della tradizione filosofica occidentale: le leggi e il linguaggio della metafisica, la concezione stabile e unitaria dell'identità personale, il modello tragico della volontà, il pregiudizio antropocentrico e l’asservimento della natura al dominio della tecnica. Senza la pretesa di comporre un discorso esaustivo o sistematico, Capra recupera soprattutto Nietzsche e il Wittgenstein delle Ricerche Logiche in una (auto)critica comparativa, per mostrare in quali modi il pensiero correlativo delle filosofie (...) orientali possa integrare e talvolta superare le impasse del pensiero antitetico. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta as questões essenciais da teoria crítica de Axel Honneth a partir do quadro referencial teórico hegeliano. Seria preciso, assim, o entendimento das questões fundamentais que Hegel enfrentava em seu tempo, para, então, contextualizar a proposta filosófica de Honneth. Sem o entendimento do quadro referencial teórico hegeliano, a reflexão da teoria crítica de Honneth torna-se incompleta. Apesar da reconhecida influência que Hegel tem na articulação teórica de Honneth, pouco se diz em que momentos específicos as questões postas por (...) Hegel também estão presentes no pensamento de Honneth. A nosso ver, isto é determinante para compreendermos o modelo crítico de Honneth. A partir de Hegel, destaca-se a categoria do reconhecimento que, em Honneth, aparece também como uma categoria central em sua proposta de teoria crítica. Primeiramente, debate-se o quadro referencial teórico hegeliano; em seguida, articula-se como as reflexões de Hegel também são essenciais para o entendimento da filosofia de Honneth. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é articular a influência da análise hegeliana da modernidade na crítica à filosofia da subjetividade moderna em Charles Taylor. Embora essa influência seja conhecida, ela não é trabalhada nos diversos estudos sobre Taylor. Este realiza uma hermenêutica da filosofia hegeliana, tornando-se responsável por uma das principais recepções do pensamento hegeliano na comunidade filosófica de língua inglesa. A influência de Hegel na obra de Taylor permanece como uma dimensão pressuposta, mas pouco explorada. Reconstruir tal influência hegeliana na (...) crítica à filosofia da subjetividade moderna em Taylor é o objetivo deste artigo. Em seus estudos sobre Hegel, como defende Rainer Forst, Taylor interpretou a crítica hegeliana ao conceito moderno de liberdade tal qual uma crítica ao conceito de sujeito vazio, não situado no contexto formador das identidades. A essa visão estreita de subjetividade, Taylor contrapôs, inspirado em Hegel, uma versão alternativa de identidade linguística, histórica, cultural e comunicativamente situada, os seja, uma identidade que é parte abrangente de uma comunidade que nos forma enquanto sujeitos. Primeiramente, explicitaremos a emergência do eu no contexto da modernidade; em seguida, enfatizaremos a crítica hegeliana à noção de sujeito moderno autoconsciente; por fim, articularemos como a crítica hegeliana influenciou diretamente Taylor em sua crítica à subjetividade moderna. (shrink)

My main objective is to clarify the platonic perspective about the narratives which present a allegorical character. The question arises from the fact that the philosopher systematically avoids using the terms????????? and???????????, usually translated as narrative and narrate, to designate the allegories in his works. His refusal is odd, because his use of the terms covers a heterogeneous group of narratives and apparently there is no reason that prevents them from designating the allegorical passages. My proposal for a solution is (...) develop a analysis of the occurrences of????????? and??????????? in corpus platonicum, which aims to promote a more detailed characterization of the meaning of the terms. To understand one of the aspects found in this survey, the concept of testimony, I follow the interpretation of Luc Brisson in his work Platon les mots et les mythes. Finally, based on Brisson's thesis, I try to explain why the philosopher avoids the terms????????? and??????????? to refer to the allegorical narratives. (shrink)

In public communication contexts, such as when a company announces the proposal for an important organizational change, argumentation typically involves multiple audiences, rather than a single and homogenous group, let alone an individual interlocutor. In such cases, an exhaustive and precise characterization of the audience structure is crucial both for the arguer, who needs to design an effective argumentative strategy, and for the external analyst, who aims at reconstructing such a strategic discourse. While the peculiar relevance of multiple audience is (...) often emphasized in the argumentation literature and in rhetorical studies, proposals for modelling multi-audience argumentative situations remain scarce and unsystematic. To address this gap, we propose an analytical framework which integrates three conceptual constructs: Rigotti and Rocci’s notion of communicative activity type, understood as the implementation of an interaction scheme into a piece of institutional reality, named interaction field; the stakeholder concept, originally developed in strategic management and public relations studies to refer to any actor who affects and/or is affected by the organizational actions and who, accordingly, carries an interest in them; the concept of participant role as it emerges from Goffman’s theory of conversation analysis and related linguistic and media studies. From this integration, we derive the notion of text stakeholder for referring to any organizational actor whose interest becomes an argumentative issue which the organizational text must account for in order to effectively achieve its communicative aim. The text stakeholder notion enables a more comprehensive reconstruction and characterization of multiple audience by eliciting the relevant participants staged in a text and identifying, for each of them, the interactional role they have, the peculiar interest they bear and the related argumentative issue they create. Considering as an illustrative case the defense document issued by a corporation against a hostile takeover attempt made by another corporation, we show how this framework can support the analysis of strategic maneuvering by better defining the audience demand and, so, better explaining how real arguers design and adapt their topical and presentational choices. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch a socially situated account of responsible agency, the main tenet of which is that the powers that constitute responsible agency are themselves socially constituted. I explain in detail the constitution relation between responsibility-relevant powers and social context and provide detailed examples of how it is realized by focusing on what I call ‘expectations-generating social factors’ such as social practices, cultural scripts, social roles, socially available self-conceptions, and political and legal institutions. I then bring my account (...) to bear on the debate about the exculpatory potential of moral ignorance. I show that a prominent position in this debate – the position that denies that moral ignorance exculpates – is grounded on an individualistic and acontextualist conception of moral capacities, moral cognition, and blameworthiness, and that this conception leads those philosophers who endorse it to make a number of questionable claims regarding the ability of ordinary agents to overcome their moral ignorance and the culpability they bear for the latter. I conclude by indicating how my socially situated account addresses the issue of moral ignorance. (shrink)

What does it mean to drive a Cadillac? What does 'cuckoo' suggest about the bird? -- two examples explored in this investigation of the history of language signs and of what philosophers, linguists, and others have had to say about them. Rudi Keller shows how signs emerge, function, and develop in the permanent process of language change. He recombines thoughts and ideas from Plato to the present day to create a new theory of the meaning and evolution of icons and (...) symbols. By assuming no prior knowledge and by developing his argument from first principles, Rudi Keller has written a basic text which includes all the necessary features: easy style, good organization, original scholarship, and historical depth. This is a non-technical book which will interest linguists, philosophers, students of communications and cultural studies, semioticians/semanticists, sociologists, and anthropologists. (shrink)

O artigo lança um olhar sobre as deficiências físicas, sensoriais e cognitivas da pessoa humana, substituindo a ideia de Deus como seu causador direto ou indireto pela teoria da aleatoriedade. Define a deficiência como expressão do caráter limitado do ser humano em geral. Propõe uma abordagem pastoral e uma postura ética diante das pessoas com deficiência.

Stress-induced brain-mediated immunoregulation is effected by two pathways: autonomic outflow and (neuro)endocrine outflow. Particular attention is given to the interaction-effects of chronic an acute stress. Recent data have established that cells of the immune system produce neuro-peptides and hormones. In concert with cytokines released by these immune cells the brain can be informed on the nature of ongoing immune activity. The significance of conditioning of immune responses is discussed.

O presente artigo investiga a unidade de valor entre ética e moral, proposta por Ronald Dworkin, assumindo, como ponto de partida, o constitucionalismo pluralista latino-americano. Para tanto, o bem viver, afirmado pelas Constituições boliviana e equatoriana mediante o resgate da sabedoria indígena ancestral – pelo reconhecimento respectivamente do suma qamaña e do sumak kawsay como fundamentos da ordem constitucional – é problematizado a partir da relação que possui com o desafio de consolidação de uma vida boa que expresse o comprometimento (...) com os valores de liberdade, igualdade e comunidade. Referido objeto demandou abordagem interdisciplinar, com destaque para a interação entre o Direito Constitucional e a Filosofia. Os resultados da investigação apontam para a convergência entre a concepção de vida boa aludida por Dworkin e o bem viver que fundamenta as constituições pluralistas latino-americanas. A pesquisa se insere na vertente jurídico-sociológica para o desenvolvimento de investigação de tipo jurídico-investigativo e técnica bibliográfica. Para consideração das fontes, foi adotado o procedimento de análise de conteúdo, com a predominância de raciocínios dedutivos e dialéticos. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractThis recent meeting covered non-bilaterian (e.g., cnidarians, ctenophores, and sponges) animals broadly, but with emphasis in four areas: 1) New genomic resources and tools for functional studies, 2) advances in developmental and regeneration studies, 3) the evolution and function of nervous systems, 4) symbiosis and the holobiome.

In his last papers about deontic logic, von Wright sustained that there is no genuine logic of norms. We argue in this paper that this striking statement by the father of deontic logic should not be understood as a death sentence to the subject. Rather, it indicates a profound change in von Wright's understanding about the epistemic and ontological role of logic in the field of norms. Instead of a logical constructivism of deontic systems revealing a necessary structure of prescriptive (...) discourse, which marked his earlier efforts, he adopted the view that such systems should be seem as mere objects of comparison, i.e. as providing practical standards of rationality for normgiving activity. Within such view he proposed an interpretation of standard deontic logic in such a way to free deontic logicians from the philosophical difficulties related to the so-called Jørgensen's dilemma and deontic paradoxes. This effort, as we claim in the present paper, is an application of Wittgenstein's therapeutic method to dissolve philosophical difficulties caused by the use of logical tools to model relations between norms. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 1 Seiten: 288-292.

This article builds upon earlier research in which the authors presented case studies focused on the design and development of two original ethical learning video games. Through this case study and a review of relevant literature, the authors explored the content creation of, and theoretical rationale for, the design and development of ethics games. Both games were geared toward an undergraduate student audience as casual learning games to be completed in a few hours of gameplay. To update and expand this (...) original work, the authors reviewed contemporary research on identity, cognition, and self in relation to video game environments as well as literature dealing more specifically with ethics and video games. From this literature base and their applied design experiences, the authors offer ten guidelines as best practices to follow for aspiring ethics game developers. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é investigar o republicanismo presente no pensamento de Alexis de Tocqueville, como crítica ao despotismo nas eras democráticas. Para tanto, seguiremos a leitura interpretativa de autores contemporâneos como Hannah Arendt, Charles Taylor e Jacques Rancière, que destacam, em suas reflexões, a interpretação de Tocqueville acerca da revolução americana, enfatizando os limites e as possibilidade de uma política participativa como crítica a um despotismo emergente na democracia. Tocqueville observa uma tendência, na democracia, de um crescente individualismo moderno, (...) junto com a perda dos laços comunitários, essenciais para a vida pública. Ele mostra-se preocupado com a indiferença pela política enquanto participação da sociedade nas decisões, havendo o perigo de uma nova, especificamente moderna, forma de despotismo. Não será uma tirania do terror e da opressão. O governo poderá até se manter com eleições periódicas. Porém, tudo poderá ser governado por um enorme poder tutelar sobre o qual o povo terá pouco ou nenhum controle. Esse tipo de servidão regrada, doce e calma pode perfeitamente se estabelecer nas democracias. Somente com uma cultura de participação política, através de associações comunitárias, em vários níveis do poder, poderemos, diz Tocqueville, combater o despotismo crescente na democracia. (shrink)

Resumo: Esta é uma leitura onto-topológica de Nietzsche inspirada na microesferologia de Peter Sloterdijk. Trabalha com a diferença entre "mergulhar no mundo" e "recuar". Essa diferença permite acessar de modo concreto a posição do avaliador de medidas e genealogista. Palavras-chave: Nietzsche; onto-topologia; estranhamento; Sloterdijk; self negativo.

People with cancer, who live better or longer than expected or who recover completely despite a poor medical prognosis, usually go through a profound change and self-development. This paper is an attempt to describe and understand the nature of this transformation by examining how initially unexamined conceptions of oneself, life, illness, etc., become manifest and get developed. One feature of this process is that people leave the present-day medical conception, which is based on the notion of victim of and battle (...) against illness, and discover that they have other resources for dealing with life and illness. It will be argued that at the centre of this transformation lies the discovery and development of the will, which is closely associated with the willingness to examine one's conceptions of oneself, health, illness and life. (shrink)

In this article I discuss David Shoemaker’s recently published piece “Responsibility: The State of the Question. Fault Lines in the Foundations.” While agreeing with Shoemaker on many points, I argue for a more unified diagnosis of the seemingly intractable debates that plague (what I call) “responsibility studies.” I claim that, of the five fault lines Shoemaker identifies, the most basic one is about the role that the notion of deserved harm should play in the theory of moral responsibility. I argue (...) that the deep divide between those theorists who affirm and those who deny that moral responsibility is essentially about the justification of desert thus understood can be traced to the disagreement about whether the focus on the reactive attitudes by itself entails that moral responsibility has nothing to do with traditional questions about desert and free will. I then show that the seeming intractableness of the other four fault lines Shoemaker identifies is expectable and explicable in light of this more basic disagreement. After this diagnostic work, I conclude by suggesting a solution to the “morass” that has taken over responsibility studies: theorists working in the field should acknowledge that it has effectively bifurcated into two discrete subareas, which I suggest calling “retribution studies” and “interpersonal studies.” -/- . (shrink)

L’un des philosophes les plus importants de l’histoire, Friedrich Nietzsche, est presque ignoré par les physiciens. L’auteur qui a déclaré la mort de Dieu au xixe siècle était enthousiasmé par la science, principalement durant la deuxième partie de son œuvre. À l’aide de la notion physique de force, Nietzsche a créé son concept de volonté de puissance. En pensant à la conservation de l’énergie, le philosophe allemand a eu une certaine inspiration pour créer son concept de l’éternel retour. Dans cet (...) article, on souligne certaines influences de la physique sur Nietzsche et on discute de l’actualité de sa position épistémologique—le perspectivisme. À partir du concept de volonté de puissance, je propose que le perspectivisme conduise à l’interprétation où la physique et la science en général sont considérées comme un jeu. (shrink)

In spite of successful tests, the standard cosmological model, the $$\varLambda$$ CDM model, possesses the most problematic concept: the initial singularity, also known as the big bang. In this paper—by adopting the Kantian difference between to think of an object and to cognize an object—it is proposed a degree of scientificity using fuzzy sets. Thus, the notion of initial singularity will not be conceived of as a scientific issue because it does not belong to the fuzzy set of what is (...) known. Indeed, the problematic concept of singularity is some sort of what Kant called the noumenon, but science, on the other hand, is constructed in the phenomenon. By applying the fuzzy degree of scientificity in cosmological models, one concludes that cosmologies with a contraction phase before the current expansion phase are potentially more scientific than the standard model. At the end of this article, it is shown that Kant’s first antinomy of pure reason indicates a limit to our cosmological models. (shrink)

It is shown that a notion of natural place is possible within modern physics. For Aristotle, the elements—the primary components of the world—follow to their natural places in the absence of forces. On the other hand, in general relativity, the so-called Carter–Penrose diagrams offer a notion of end for objects along the geodesics. Then, the notion of natural place in Aristotelian physics has an analog in the notion of conformal infinities in general relativity.

This paper discusses the commitment account of assertion, according to which two necessary conditions for asserting that p are the speaker's undertaking a commitment to justify her assertion in the face of challenges and the speaker's licensing the audience to defer justificatory challenges back to her. Relying on what I call the "cancellation test," and focusing on Robert Brandom's version of the CAA, I show that the latter is wrong: it is perfectly possible to assert that p even while explicitly (...) disavowing the justificatory commitment and while refusing to issue a deferring license. Then I sketch an alternative to the CAA, the trust account of assertion, according to which speakers necessarily present themselves as trustworthy concerning p's truth whenever they assert p. I explain why this is different from undertaking a justificatory commitment, and offer some reasons for thinking that this is a more promising account. (shrink)

I examine the question of whether people are sometimes morally blameworthy for what I call ‘slips’: wrongful actions or omissions that a good-willed agent inadvertently performs due to a non-negligent failure to be aware of relevant considerations. I focus in particular on the capacitarian answer to this question, according to which possession of the requisite capacities to be aware of relevant considerations and respond appropriately explains blameworthiness for slips. I argue, however, that capacitarianism fails to show that agents have responsibility (...) level control over their slips and, consequently, fails to show that it is reasonable to expect agents to avoid this kind of wrongdoing. I conclude that people are typically not blameworthy for their slips, but only regarding the backward-looking, desert-entailing type of blame that has been at issue in this debate. I suggest that ordinary intuitions about blameworthiness for slips can be accommodated by appealing to other types of responsibility and blame. (shrink)

This article proposes a more culturalist and variegated conception of the individual than that presented by individualization theorists. Inspired by the approach of the individual advocated by Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and John Meyers, it first outlines the general script of the individual-as-actor that informs modern individualism as well as the generic characteristics that are routinely attributed to persons such as agency and free will. It subsequently reconstructs three predominant interpretations of this general script, i.e. utilitarian, moral and expressive individualism. (...) For each variant, the intellectual genesis and overall definition of the institutionalization in specific societal domains and the dominant articulations in social theory are briefly presented. With this threefold distinction, the aim is to synthesize the extensive literature on individualism and to show the sociological strengths of approaching subjectivity in terms of institutionalized scripts. (shrink)

Resenha da obra: MACIEL, Sonia Maria. Ética e Felicidade - Um Estudo do Filebo de Platão. Porto Alegre> Edipucrs, 2002.

According to Kant, the possibility that pure practical reason may effectively determine the will depends, initially, upon an in-depth investigation of the faculty of desire within the perspective of his transcendental philosophy. In order to demonstrate this, we will present in this paper the critical development of this faculty and with it the bases upon which the concepts of a good will and of a pure practical reason relate themselves to the constitution of morality.