Recent neuroscientific evidence brings into question the conclusion that all aspects of consciousness are gone in patients who have descended into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Here we summarize the evidence from human brain imaging as well as neurological damage in animals and humans suggesting that some form of consciousness can survive brain damage that commonly causes PVS. We also raise the issue that neuroscientific evidence indicates that raw emotional feelings (primary-process affects) can exist without any cognitive awareness of those (...) feelings. Likewise, the basic brain mechanisms for thirst and hunger exist in brain regions typically not damaged by PVS. If affective feelings can exist without cognitive awareness of those feelings, then it is possible that the instinctual emotional actions and pain "reflexes" often exhibited by PVS patients may indicate some level of mentality remaining in PVS patients. Indeed, it is possible such raw affective feelings are intensified when PVS patients are removed from life-supports. They may still experience a variety of primary-process affective states that could constitute forms of suffering. If so, withdrawal of life-support may violate the principle of nonmaleficence and be tantamount to inflicting inadvertent "cruel and unusual punishment" on patients whose potential distress, during the process of dying, needs to be considered in ethical decision-making about how such individuals should be treated, especially when their lives are ended by termination of life-supports. Medical wisdom may dictate the use of more rapid pharmacological forms of euthanasia that minimize distress than the de facto euthanasia of life-support termination that may lead to excruciating feelings of pure thirst and other negative affective feelings in the absence of any reflective awareness. (shrink)

A new equivalent presentation of AGM revision is introduced, in which a preference-based choice function directly selects one among the potential outcomes of the operation. This model differs from the usual presentations of AGM revision in which the choice function instead delivers a collection of sets whose intersection is the outcome. The new presentation confirms the versatility of AGM revision, but it also lends credibility to the more general model of direct choice among outcomes of which AGM revision is shown (...) here to be a special case. (shrink)

A possible world semantics for preference is developed. The remainder operator () is used to give precision to the notion that two states of the world are as similar as possible, given a specified difference between them. A general structure is introduced for preference relations between states of affairs, and three types of such preference relations are defined. It is argued that one of them, actual preference, corresponds closely to the concept of preference in informal discourse. Its logical properties are (...) studied and shown to be plausible. (shrink)

A value statement such as “she is a good teacher” is categoryspecified, i.e., the criteria of evaluation are specified as those that are applicable to a given category, in this case the category of teachers. In this study of categoryspecified value statements, certain categories are identified that cannot be used to specify value aspects. Special attention is paid to categories that are constituted by functional characteristics. The logical properties of value statements that refer to such categories are shown to differ (...) significantly from the corresponding properties in social choice theory. (shrink)

A formal language is introduced that contains expressions for the dependency of a legal relation on the claims that the concerned individuals make and on the permissions that they grant. It is used for a classification of legal relations into six major categories: categorical obligation, categorical permission, claimable obligation, grantable permission, claim-dependent obligation and grant-dependent permission. Legal rights may belong to any of these six categories, but the characteristics of a right-holder are shown to be different in each of the (...) six types. (shrink)

In public debates, agricultural biotechnology is almost invariably discussed as a potential threat to the environment and to human health. Without downplaying the risks associated with this technology we emphasize that if properly regulated, it can be a forceful tool to solve environmental problems and promote human health. Agricultural biotechnology can reduce environmental problems in at least three ways: it can diminish the need for environmentally damaging agricultural practices such as pesticides, fertilizers, tillage, and irrigation. It can reduce the land (...) area needed for agriculture, thus reducing the CO2 effect of agriculture and improving biodiversity. It can produce energy in a CO2-neutral way (especially if new technologies involving the cultivation of microalgae become successful). Furthermore, agricultural biotechnology can have positive effects on human health by decreasing occupational and dietary exposure to pesticides, improving the nutritional value of food, and producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently. We argue that those who wish to give high priority to environmental goals cannot afford any longer to be mere onlookers while others decide the future directions of agricultural biotechnology. (shrink)

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. The distinguished contributors to this volume address most of the central themes found in Lingis's writings—including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself.

Das traditionelle Selbstverstandnis des Menschen in der westlichen Kultur ist gekennzeichnet von dem Dualismus von Natur und Kultur oder Korper und Geist. Demgegenuber fassen neuere Konzeptionen des "verkorperten Geistes" (embodied mind) zunehmend die Wechselwirkungen von biologischer, anthropologischer und kultureller Evolution ins Auge. Damit dynamisiert sich der traditionelle Gegensatz von Natur und Kultur zu einem Prozess, in dem die beiden Momente ineinander verschrankt sind und sich wechselseitig bestimmen. Auf dieser Basis lasst sich die Kontinuitat der menschlichen Evolution als stufenformige Transformation der (...) gesamten korperlichen Struktur des Lebewesens Mensch begreifen. Der Band vereint geistes-, kultur- und naturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen und Zeitskalen der menschlichen Entwicklung und tragt damit zur Grundlegung des neuen Forschungsgebiets einer Interdisziplinaren Anthropologie bei. (shrink)

Der erste Band der Gesammelten Schriften von Hermann Schweppenhäuser enthält Studien und Abhandlungen über Sprache, Literatur und Kunst, die zuerst im Zeitraum zwischen 1957 und 2007 publiziert wurden. Dazu gehören Schweppenhäusers Frankfurter Dissertation über Heideggers Theorie der Sprache; ein berühmter, lange nicht mehr erhältlicher Lexikonartikel zur Sprachphilosophie; kürzere Abhandlungen zum Sprachbegriff bei Benjamin, Adorno und Horkheimer; Aufsätze zu ästhetischen Themen sowie Essays über Johann Gottfried Seume, Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, Hermann Hesse, Stefan George und Botho Strauß. Außerdem wird hier erstmals eine (...) Arbeit über Sprachsoziologie veröffentlicht, die ursprünglich für die Soziologischen Exkurse des Instituts für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt geschrieben worden war, dann aber nicht in den 1956 erschienenen Band aufgenommen wurde. (shrink)

ObjectiveHopelessness and depression are strongly associated with suicidality. Given that physical and psychological outcomes can be altered with hope, hope is a therapeutic goal of increasing importance in the treatment of brain tumor patients. Moreover, it is not yet understood which factors affect the perception of hope in brain tumor patients. In addition, it remains uncertain whether lower-grade brain tumor patients suffer less from psycho-oncological distress than higher-grade brain tumor patients.MethodsNeuro-oncological patients were examined perioperatively with the Distress Thermometer and the (...) Herth Hope Index. In addition, psychological comorbidities and an assessment of general psycho-oncological distress were recorded.ResultsSixty-six brain tumor patients were included. No differences between higher- and lower-grade brain tumor patients were observed for general psycho-oncological distress and hope. However, higher-grade brain tumor patients showed a significantly higher level of depression and more negative expectations regarding therapeutic success. The extent of depression correlated negatively with hope.ConclusionUnexpectedly, higher-grade brain tumor patients remained as hopeful as lower-grade brain tumor patients despite the devastating diagnosis, higher levels of depression, and a worse expectation of therapeutic success. Conversely, lower-grade brain tumor patients experience as much psycho-oncological distress as patients with a higher-grade brain tumor, underpinning the imperative need for comprehensive psycho-oncological screening. For all brain tumor patients, considering hope is important to avoid suicides resulting from hopelessness and depression. (shrink)

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. The distinguished contributors to this volume address most of the central themes found in Lingis's writings—including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself.

Collective migration is a key process that is critical during development, as well as in physiological and pathophysiological processes including tissue repair, wound healing and cancer. Studies in genetic model organisms have made important contributions to our current understanding of the mechanisms that shape cells into different tissues during morphogenesis. Recent advances in high‐resolution and live‐cell‐imaging techniques provided new insights into the social behavior of cells based on careful visual observations within the context of a living tissue. In this review, (...) we will compare Drosophila testis nascent myotube migration with established in vivo model systems, elucidate similarities, new features and principles in collective cell migration. (shrink)

This paper asks: How can Spinoza help us to better understand digital capitalism? The article engages critically and constructively with the philosophies of Spinoza, Marx, Hegel, and Antonio Negri in order to combine elements from their works. It focuses on a particular aspect of digital capitalism, namely the antagonism between digital labour and digital capital. Spinoza did not directly analyse class relations. Nonetheless, his philosophy can help us to indirectly analyse contemporary capitalism. This paper undertakes an analysis of digital capitalism (...) by taking Spinoza’s concepts of power as potentia and potestas as a starting point. Antonio Negri has stressed the dialectic of potentia and potestas as part of the analysis of class and capitalism. This paper connects Spinoza to Marx’s and Negri’s analyses of capitalism and the working class. It analyses digital capitalism’s antagonisms between digital labour and digital capital, digital commodities and digital commons, and the networked digital productive forces and the digital relations of production as the antagonism between digital potentia and digital potestas. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 42-43, May 2012.