An early work that lays the foundation for establishing a “polemical” dimension to psychoanalysis. We certainly have the unconscious that we deserve, an unconscious for specialists, ready-made for an institutionalized discourse. I would rather see it as something that wraps itself around us in everyday objects, something that is involved with day-to-day problems, with the world outside. It would be the possible itself, open to the socius, to the cosmos...—from The Machinic Unconscious: Essays in Schizoanalysis In his seminal solo-authored work (...) The Machinic Unconscious, Félix Guattari lays the groundwork for a general pragmatics capable of resisting the semiotic enslavement of subjectivity. Concluding that psychoanalytic theory had become part and parcel of a repressive, capitalist social order, Guattari here outlines a schizoanalytic theory to undo its capitalist structure and set the discipline back on its feet. Combining theoretical research from fields as diverse as cybernetics, semiotics, ethnology, and ethology, Guattari reintroduces into psychoanalysis a “polemical” dimension, at once transhuman, transsexual, and transcosmic, that brings out the social and political—the “machinic”—potential of the unconscious. To illustrate his theory, Guattari turns to literature and analyzes the various modes of subjectivization and semiotization at work in Proust's In Search of Lost Time, examining the novel as if he were undertaking a scientific exploration in the style of Freud or Newton. Casting Proust's figures as abstract mental objects, Guattari maps the separation between literature and science, elaborating along the way such major Deleuze-Guattarian concepts as “faciality” and “refrain,” which would be unpacked in their subsequent A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Never before available in English, The Machinic Unconscious has for too long been the missing chapter from Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus project: the most important political extension of May 1968 and one of the most important philosophical contributions of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Notes and journal entries document Guattari and Deleuze's collaboration on their 1972 book Anti-Oedipus. "The unconscious is not a theatre, but a factory," wrote Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus, instigating one of the most daring intellectual adventures of the last half-century. Together, the well-known philosopher and the activist-psychiatrist were updating both psychoanalysis and Marxism in light of a more radical and "constructivist" vision of capitalism: "Capitalism is the exterior limit of all societies because it has no exterior limit (...) itself. It works well as long as it keeps breaking down."Few people at the time believed, as they wrote in the often-quoted opening sentence of Rhizome, that "the two of us wrote Anti-Oedipus together." They added, "Since each of us was several, that became quite a crowd." These notes, addressed to Deleuze by Guattari in preparation for Anti-Oedipus, and annotated by Deleuze, substantiate their claim, finally bringing out the factory behind the theatre. They reveal Guattari as an inventive, highly analytical, mathematically-minded "conceptor," arguably one of the most prolific and enigmatic figures in philosophy and sociopolitical theory today. The Anti-Oedipus Papers are supplemented by substantial journal entries in which Guattari describes his turbulent relationship with his analyst and teacher Jacques Lacan, his apprehensions about the publication of Anti-Oedipus and accounts of his personal and professional life as a private analyst and codirector with Jean Oury of the experimental clinic Laborde. (shrink)

Gene therapy has emerged from the idea of inserting a wild‐type copy of a gene in order to restore the proper expression and function of a damaged gene. Initial efforts have focused on finding the proper vector and delivery method to introduce a corrected gene to the affected tissue or cell type. Even though these first attempts are clearly promising, seveal problems remain unsolved. A major problem is the influence of chromatin structure on transgene expression. To overcome chromatin‐dependent repressive transgenic (...) states, researchers have begun to use chromatin regulatory elements to drive transgene expression. Insulators or chromatin boundaries are able to protect a transgene against chromatin position effects at their genomic integration sites, and they are able to maintain transgene expression for long periods of time. Therefore, these elements may be very useful tools in gene therapy applications for ensuring high‐level and stable expression of transgenes. BioEssays 26:796–807, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia un peculiar recurso discursivo de un cronista barroco del virreinato del Perú: un elogio de las mujeres criollas de la ciudad de Arequipa, que se transforma en una vindicación general de los indígenas como una forma de exaltar a la ciudad criolla a través de una serie de analogías históricas con experiencias e ideales de la tradición hispánica asumibles para una audiencia metropolitana.

El comentario de texto es una práctica habitual en la enseñanza de la filosofía y de otras disciplinas. En general, los modelos existentes se centran en la comprensión del texto y del contexto del autor y la época, pero menos en la apropiación dialogada por parte del lector de los problemas a los que el texto hace frente. Basados en las aportaciones de algunas de las corrientes hermenéuticas más significativas del siglo XX, los autores fundamentan y exponen un modelo de (...) comentario de texto centrado en el diálogo establecido entre el lector y el texto. (shrink)

La familia Murcia de la Llana desarrolló a lo largo de casi un siglo una de las tareas más significativas y a su vez más desconocidas dentro del complicado proceso por el que un manuscrito debía transcurrir hasta abandonar la imprenta: la corrección de libros. Por sus manos pasaron la mayor parte de los escritos del siglo XVII, muchos de los cuales alcanzarían posteriormente un éxito sin precedentes, caso del Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes. Este estudio se articula en base (...) a una serie de noticias documentales, muchas inéditas, que intentan esclarecer la compleja relación de parentescos, así como interesantes datos sobre el oficio de corrector general de libros. (shrink)

This article aims to reconstruct the way by which Leibniz presents in some of his texts an a posteriori proof of God’s existence. To this end, we intend to demonstrate the centrality of the Principle of Sufficient Reason applied to the contingency of the passage to the existence of a given world. Once demonstrated the existence of God by these ways, and still taking into account the Principle of Sufficient Reason - now applied to the existence of this world in (...) particular -, we will discuss the theory of possible worlds and Leibniz’s thesis according to which the Actual World is the most perfect possible. (shrink)

The Fifth Joint Workshop on Integrated History and Philosophy of Science asked participants, “What is HPS for?” This clearly instrumental question generated a welcome spectrum of practical responses. Examples of “HPS-in-action” included the concept of complementary science, suggestions for new pedagogical strategies and investigations into the socio-political dimensions of science. On the other hand, a more theoretical underpinning did emerge in a discussion of the pros and cons of pluralism. This emphasis on pluralism not only underlies complementary science, but may (...) also provide a pragmatic working basis for developing a more active role for HPS in both science and society. (shrink)

Jake Kosek. Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9341-3 Authors Caroline Felix Oliveira, Iowa State University, 403 East Hall, Ames, IA 50011, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.

Both the sound and the sea are characterized by a constant fluidity and transformation, which has been considered as a creative foundation for expanded sonic practices that identify, capture and experiment with natural elements. The text aims to explore how the idea of sonification as a process of translating qualities and data into sound constitutes the departure point towards contemporary sound practices that encourage deeper listening and immersive experiences. Taking the sea-responsive sound installations of French artist Félix Blume, Rumors from (...) the Sea and Suspiros as a foundation, the article presents a reflective conversation between Félix Blume and Bill Psarras on aspects of such artworks that highlight ideas of sea and limens, listening experience, sound ecology and sonic instruments through performative, inventive and participatory lenses. (shrink)

Para la estética, la creatividad es la emergencia del instante que la vuelve irrepetible o un transitar pendular que la hace resurgir como reminiscencia cegada por un ocaso repetitivo. Haciendo coincidir proceso y teleología, Peirce aglutina estas dos dimensiones, sin atisbar realmente un atisbo de humanidad para disfrutar de lo ínfimo. De ahí que propongamos un momento oportuno que nos dirija hacia una temporalidad más humana.

Radical Enactivism holds that the best explanation of basic forms of cognition is provided without involving information of any sort. According to this view, the ability to perceive visual affordances should be accounted for in terms of extensional covariations between variables spanning the agent’s body and the environment. Contrary to Radical Enactivism, I argue that the intensional properties of cognition cannot be ignored, and that the way in which an agent represents the world has consequences on the explanation of basic (...) sensorimotor abilities. To support this claim, I show that the perception of visual affordances is not segregated from higher forms of cognition; rather, it is modulated by the agent’s ability to recognize the semantic identity of the visual target. Accordingly, since the semantic recognition of an object involves a way of representing it under a certain description, it can be inferred that the perception of visual affordances cannot be accounted for without considering the intensional properties of cognition. This poses an explanatory issue for Radical Enactivism. (shrink)

Post-Gibson attempts to set out a definition of affordance generally agree that this notion can be understood as a property of the environment with salience for an organism’s behavior. According to this view, some scholars advocate the idea that affordances are dispositional properties of physical objects that, given suitable circumstances, necessarily actualize related actions. This paper aims at assessing this statement in light of a theory of affordance perception. After years of discontinuity between strands of empirical and theoretical research, the (...) time is ripe for addressing the question of whether the dispositional interpretation of affordance is in accordance with some recent evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience. Following this line, I clarify that there are some cases of affordance-related effects that neither require the actualization of an action, nor the presence of an action-related property bearer in the environment, and that the identification of affordance with physical properties provides only a partial explanation of the wide range of affordance-related effects. Accordingly, I argue in favor of a more general account of affordance perception based on the ability to directly detect perceptual patterns in the environment. (shrink)

La psicología y los psicólogos han dedicado bastante esfuerzo para conseguir una comprensión mejor y más profundea de las emociones y los sentimientos. Roberto Colom con sus respuestas nos ofrece una visión de primera mano de todas esas aportaciones así como el punto de vista de un psicólogo sobre el valos y la importancia de las emociones, los sntimientos y la vida afectiva en general para la personalidad humana.