Early embryogenesis is marked by a frail Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC). The time of SAC acquisition varies depending on the species, cell size or a yet to be uncovered developmental timer. This means that for a specific number of divisions, biorientation of sister chromatids occurs unsupervised. When error‐prone segregation is an issue, an aneuploidy‐selective apoptosis system can come into play to eliminate chromosomally unbalanced cells resulting in healthy newborns. However, aneuploidy content can be too great to overcome, endangering viability.SAC generates (...) a diffusible signal to lengthen time spent in mitosis if needed, ensuring correct chromosome segregation, a fundamental factor in the generation of euploid cells. Thus, it remains puzzling what benefit could come from delaying SAC acquisition till later in the development. In this review, we describe what is known on SAC acquisition in distinct species and highlight pending research as well as potential applications for such knowledge. (shrink)

Open Mind, Discriminating Mind: Reflections on Human Possibilities, by Charles T. Tart. (San Francisco: Harper & Row), 1990.

Kant’s turn to the subject has changed the epistemological conditions for theology. Four intellectual backgrounds of objections are examined: an Aristotelian and Thomistic teleological order of nature (1); Augustinianism based on original sin in which human agency is completely attributed to God’s grace (2); a Hegelian critique of the deontological conception of an “unconditional ought” which also puts Kant’s postulate of the existence of God into question (3); the combination in Radical Orthodoxy of a postmodern critique of the subject, an (...) Augustinian view of human nature, and a monistic understanding of the Trinity (4). Their different diagnoses why Kant’s work constitutes a cul-de-sac are contrasted with theological positions that welcome it as a watershed: its move from ontology to human subjectivity; from a biologically transmitted inescapable sin to a freedom for good and evil; from a strict reciprocity to an unlimited scope of ethics that is faced with the question of meaning; and from condemning the secular as “heretical” to defining it as the genuine space of the free human counterparts created by God, according to Duns Scotus’s late medieval theology which anticipates Kant’s concept of autonomy. The standard by which theologies are judged is how they do justice to the New Testament’s message of salvation by Jesus Christ. The Conclusion argues that Kant’s turn to freedom in its unconditionality and finitude has opened up a thought form in which the truth of the Gospel finds more adequate categories of understanding than in those of earlier eras. (shrink)

: This article charts the rise and fall of the Modern System of the Arts and the failure of the aesthetic theory of art to define membership in the so-called system, which, instead, I argue, is and has been, for a long time, merely a historically evolved collection. Rather than endorsing the continued attempt to define Art with a capital A in terms of aesthetic experience, I recommend alternative lines of research for contemporary philosophers of the arts.

Face à une installation impénétrable comme face à un mur de fond de scène, l’évidence est la même : l’impasse constitue l’œuvre, qu’elle soit plastique ou théâtrale. Aujourd’hui débordée de tous côtés, cette clôture de l’œuvre est cependant assumée, voire ironiquement redoublée, dans certaines scénographies. L’impasse y prend alors une valeur paradoxale en mobilisant des puissances de perception et d’attention renouvelées : à autant d’écarts inframinces, de seuils inaperçus, comme aux échos d’autres tentatives de traversée plus directement politiques.

1. Naturalism Naturalism, it has been said, is the distinctive development in philosophy over the last thirty years. There has been a naturalistic turn away from the a priori methods of traditional philosophy to a conception of philosophy as continuous with natural science. The doctrine has been extensively discussed and has won considerable following in the USA. This is, on the whole, not true of Britain and continental Europe, where the pragmatist tradition never took root, and the temptations of scientism (...) in philosophy were less alluring. Contemporary American naturalism originates in the writings of Quine, the metaphysician of twentieth-century science. With extraordinary panache, he painted a largescale picture of human nature, of language and of the web of belief. I believe that in almost every major respect, it is, like the picture painted by Descartes, the great metaphysician of seventeenth-century science, mistaken. But it evidently appeals to the spirit of the times. So it is worthy of critical examination and careful refutation. I shall argue that the naturalistic turn is a cul-de-sac – a turn that is to be passed by if we are to keep to the highroad of good sense. Naturalism, like so many of Quine’s doctrines, was propounded in response to Carnap. As Quine understood matters, Carnap had been persuaded by Russell’s Our Knowledge of the External World that it is the task of philosophy to demonstrate that our knowledge of the external world is a logical construction out of, and hence can be reduced to, elementary experiences. Quine rejected the reductionism of Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau, and found the idealist basis uncongenial to his own dogmatic realist behaviourism, inspired by Watson and later reinforced by Skinner. The rejection of reductionism and ‘unregenerate realism’, Quine averred, were the sources of his naturalism (FME 72). What exactly was this? We can distinguish in Quine between three different but inter-related programmes for future philosophy: epistemological, ontological and philosophical naturalism. Naturalized epistemology is to displace traditional epistemology, transforming the investigation into ‘an enterprise within natural science’ (NNK 68) – a psychological enterprise of investigating how the ‘input’ of radiation, etc., impinging on the nerve endings of human beings can ‘ultimately’ result in an ‘output’ of our theoretical descriptions of the external world.. (shrink)

RésuméSi on la compare avec l’habituelle coercition infligée au condamné à mort dans le monde romain, la peine réservée au parricide ne manque pas de surprendre par son originalité. Le coupable est chaussé de sabots de bois, sa tête est ensuite recouverte d’une cagoule en peau de loup et il sera ensuite flagellé à l’aide de verges sanguines. Pour finir, le contrevenant prend place dans un sac de cuir qui sera cousu après l’intromission d’un bestiaire composé d’un chien, d’un coq, (...) d’une vipère et d’un singe d’après la description donnée par Modestin au Digeste 48.9.9 pr., ceci avant que l’ensemble ne soit jeté à l’eau. Même si la symbolique précise de chaque élément est difficile à saisir en raison de leur origine diffuse, car issue de l’imagination populaire mêlée à divers substrats religieux imbriqués, cette procédure punitive forme un tout cohérent qui ne constitue pas un châtiment politisé au sens strict, c’est-à-dire déployé dans le cadre juridique de la cité. La justice humaine se borne surtout à établir la faute gravissime incombant au contrevenant, laquelle remet en cause le socle de l’organisation romaine, ainsi qu’à préparer son rejet total de la communauté humaine et du droit qui y standardise les rapports. En ce sens, l’homme se garde de donner directement la mort au parricide et la procédure d’expulsion n’est pas sans rappeler celle d’autres individus dits «monstrueux» parce que frappés d’anormalité physique, notamment sexuelle, car ceux-ci remettaient en cause le principe même de l’existence sociale. Cette priorité absolue que constitue la sauvegarde du groupe social dans le traitement du crime a pu servir de point d’ancrage à certaines positions contemporaines qui commandent d’extraire le contrevenant de l’ordre légal, afin de traiter efficacement un acte considéré comme abominable dans l’absolu. C’est l’exemple de la théorie du droit pénal de l’ennemi dont les lointaines racines peuvent être repérées dans les procédés d’expulsions socio-juridiques qui trouvaient à se déployer dans l’Antiquité romaine. (shrink)

Author's answers to questions on Buddhist philosophy, posed to him by some foreign scholars.

Research on early-divergent angiosperms, including Amborella, the putative sister to all other extant angiosperms, is increasingly used as a yardstick to infer the nature of the hypothetical ancestral angiosperm. Some traits are relatively diverse (and hence relatively labile) in this phylogenetic grade, compared with the more derived eudicot clade, in which developmental patterns have become increasingly canalized. One of the many mysteries surrounding the origin of the angiosperms is the evolutionary origin of the Polygonum-type embryo sac (monosporic, eight-nucleate and seven-celled) (...) that occurs in the majority of flowering plants. Observations on the megagametophyte of Amborella are conflicting, but a recent report of a supernumerary synergid in this genus1 raises the question of whether the Polygonum-type embryo sac is derived by duplication of a four-nucleate structure or by reduction from a multicellular structure. BioEssays 28: 1067–1071, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Philosophers, scientists, and other researchers have increasingly characterized humanity as having reached an epistemic and technical stage at which “we can control our own evolution.” Moral–philosophical analysis of this outlook reveals some problems, beginning with the vagueness of “we.” At least four glosses on “we” in the proposition “we, humanity, control our evolution” can be made: “we” is the bundle of all living humans, a leader guiding the combined species, each individual acting severally, or some mixture of these three involving (...) a market interpretation of future evolutionary processes. While all of these glosses have difficulties under philosophical analysis, how we as a species handle our fate via technical developments is all-important. I propose our role herein should be understood as other than controllers of our evolution. (shrink)

A key premise of the heuristics-and-biases program is that heuristics are “quite useful.” Let us now pay more than lip service to this premise, and analyse the environmental structures that make heuristics more or less useful. Let us also strike from the long list of biases those phenomena that are not biases and explore to what degree those that remain are adaptive or can be understood as by-products of adaptive mechanisms.

The article is an evaluation of the economic, organizational and social theory of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s The New Spirit of Capitalism 15 years after its publication. The role of network capitalism, state capitalism, and aesthetic capitalism in French social life is analysed. The article concludes that flexible network capitalism was largely a chimera of the 1990s and that French political and economic life today is dominated by an ailing state capitalism.

Jean-Louis Fournel, abordant la période des guerres d’Italie, tente de montrer comment ces nouvelles guerres modifient l’intensité et le rythme de la guerre guerroyée : la conscience d’une violence et d’une rapidité inédites fait planer une menace de mort sur les États eux-mêmes et la question de la guerre est dès lors placée au cœur de la pensée politique. Trois manifestations de ces « nouvelles » guerres marquent particulièrement les contemporains et autorisent l’analyste à évoquer ici une « brutalisation » (...) ou un ensauvagement des conflits, bien avant la Première Guerre mondiale qui a fondé récemment le développement d’une telle problématique : les sacs de ville, la mise en coupe réglée des territoires conquis avec le développement d’une véritable guerre contre les civils et, enfin, l’augmentation exponentielle du nombre de morts durant les batailles (du fait entre autres des modifications dans l’armement et du nombre de soldats constituant les nouvelles armées « nationales »). S’ensuivent des tentatives d’une nouvelle « humanisation », très relative des conflits armés fondée sur un nouvel examen du jus in bello (par opposition à une quasi disparition de la question du jus ad bellum). Il est notable à cet égard que le lexique de la « barbarie » est très peu utilisé chez les chroniqueurs et historiens des guerres d’Italie alors même qu’il a une forte présence chez les historiens et témoins des guerres de Religion en France. On peut se poser la question de savoir s’il ne faudrait pas voir là une certaine « rechristianisation » du discours sur la guerre. De la sorte, cette « rechristianisation » d’une partie de la réflexion sur la violence de guerre, au croisement du déclin de l’idéologie chevaleresque, des réflexions philosophiques, théologiques ou juridiques nées des massacres commis par les conquistadores dans le « nouveau monde » (Cortez avait fait ses premières armes sur les champs de bataille italiens) et des réactions face aux atrocités de la guerre civile, permettrait peut-être tout à la fois d’inscrire la barbarie dans le présent des conflits, de permettre un nouveau discours pacifiste, de confier paradoxalement au souverain comme instance laïque, au-dessus des choix religieux personnels, le rôle d’arbitre et de régulateur des guerres (cf. les politiques), et, enfin, de relancer la question du jus in bello (le jus ad bellum n’étant plus vraiment opératoire, pas plus que le rôle d’arbitre du pape qui s’effondrera bientôt définitivement dans l’Europe née du traité de Westphalie). (shrink)

Cadillac, sacs Louis Vuitton, montres Rolex, jacuzzis, caviar et champagne Dom Perignon : ces biens sont indéniablement luxueux. Au contraire, l’oxygène, le travail rémunéré ou l’eau ne sont pas considérés comme des luxes. L’histoire de l’économie regorge de biens qui ont perdu ou acquis un caractère luxueux (par exemple, le café, le thé ou le cacao). Qu’est-ce que le luxe ? La question de l’essence du luxe a été négligée par les philosophes qui se sont plutôt intéressés à la question (...) de la valeur morale du luxe. Nous débuterons par formuler la conception classique du luxe qui prévaut en économie : les objets luxueux sont des biens non nécessaires, c’est-à-dire superflus. La superfluité du luxe est analysée en termes d’accès aux biens: un bien est superflu lorsqu’il n’est accessible qu’à une minorité privilégiée. Cette définition camoufle deux conceptions distinctes du luxe : le luxe comme superfluité et le luxe comme privilège. Notre analyse révèlera que chacune de ces conceptions s’avère problématique. Nous explorerons ensuite une approche sémiotique du luxe en termes de symbole de la classe privilégiée. Nous conclurons en esquissant une nouvelle théorie : le luxe est l’extraordinaire dans l’ordinaire. (shrink)

Notices Amer. Math. Sac. 51, 2004). Logically, such a "Grothendieck topos" is something like a universe of continuously variable sets. Before long, however, F.W. Lawvere and M. Tierney provided an elementary axiomatization..

TCCS - Việt Nam đang đứng trước ngưỡng cửa thập niên thứ hai, thế kỷ XXI. Tuy vậy, mốc thời gian không quan trọng bằng những đổi thay chóng mặt của quá trình quốc tế hóa đời sống kinh tế, và những biến đổi sâu sắc nó sẽ mang lại. Quá trình ấy, ngay bây giờ, lại được phóng đại qua lăng kính của những biến động toàn cầu do khủng hoảng kinh tế - tài chính 2007 - 2009, điều (...) có thể dẫn tới những biến đổi lớn về cấu trúc kinh tế nhân loại, cũng như diễn tiến địa - chính trị khắp nơi trên thế giới. (shrink)

"The pursuit of science by professional scientists every day bears less and less resemblance to the perception of science by the general public. It is not the rule-based, methodical system for accumulating facts that dominates the public view. Rather it is the idiosyncratic, often bumbling search for understanding in mostly uncharted places. It is full of wrong turns, cul-de-sacs, mistaken identities, false findings, errors of fact and judgment-and the occasional remarkable success. The widespread but distorted view of science as infallible (...) originates in an education system that teaches nothing but facts using very large, very frightening textbooks, and is spread by media that report on discoveries but almost never on process. It is further reinforced by politicians who pay for it and want to use it to determine policy and therefore want it right and, worst of all, sometimes by scientists who learn early on that talking too much about failures and not enough about successes can harm their careers. Failure, then, is a book that seeks to make science more appealing by exposing its faults. In this sequel to Ignorance, Stuart Firestein shows us that scientific enterprise is riddled with failures, and that this is not only necessary but good. Failure reveals how science got its start, when humans began to use a process-trial and error-as a kind of recipe that includes a hefty dose of failure. It gives the non-scientifically trained public an insider's view of how science is actually done, with the aim of making it accessible, comprehensible, and entertaining."--Publisher description. (shrink)

is chapter takes a fresh look at micro-macro relations in the social sciences from the point of view of the mechanistic account of explanation. Traditionally, micro- macro issues have been assimilated to the problem of methodological individualism. It is not my intention to resurrect this notoriously unfruitful controversy. On the contrary, the main thrust of this chapter is to show that the cul-de-sac of that debate can be avoided if we give up some of its presuppositions. The debate about methodological (...) individualism is based on assumptions about explanation, and once we change those assumptions, the whole argumenta- tive landscape changes. (shrink)

Este documento registra la entrevista al comunicador social Juan Manuel Rojas, gerente general de Creative Forward Films SAC (en el Perú), que ha realizado estudios orientados al tema audiovisual en la Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, la Universidad Católica Argentina y la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. El propósito de esta conversación fue que se conociera de manera panorámica en qué consiste la formación de un comunicador y cómo esta es de utilidad para emprender un trabajo dirigido a la (...) práctica de lo audiovisual. Con las experiencias del entrevistado, se consigue construir una idea del universo cinematográfico en cuanto al desarrollo de los guiones y sus estructuras, el dominio especializado del lenguaje como herramienta fundamental y persuasiva para la publicidad, la crítica a las producciones de cine, los concursos que se promueven para respaldar la labor de los directores, etc. (shrink)

In a response to critiques of his On the Postcolony in a 2006 African Identities article, Achille Mbembe declared that the book was written at a time when the study of Africa was caught in a dramatic analytical gridlock. Traditional critical frameworks and discourses on the condition of postcolonial Africa seemed inadequate and ineffectual. Marxian analysis of colonization and its consequences is specifically isolated as one such impotent tool of critical analysis. As an alternative to these “failed” traditional paradigms, Mbembe (...) launches into a deconstructive experimental hermeneutic that leads him to the explication of colonial alterity in libidinal, representational and semiotically analogous language, as exhibited in On the Postcolony. This article challenges the efficacy of this post-structuralist semiotics and phenomenological extrapolations as the proposed way out of his perceived “cul-de-sac” in African postcolonial self-imagination. In particular, his dismissal of Marxian theory is turned... (shrink)

Background: Alexithymia is a personality trait which is characterized by an inability to identify and describe conscious emotions of oneself and others.Aim: The present study aimed to determine whether various measures of mental health, interoception, psychological flexibility, and self-as-context, predicted through linear associations alexithymia as an outcome. This also included relevant mediators and non-linear predictors identified for particular sub-groups of participants through cluster analyses of an Artificial Neural Network output.Methodology: Two hundred and thirty participants completed an online survey which included (...) the following questionnaires: Toronto alexithymia scale; Acceptance and Action Questionnaire 2 ; Positive and Negative Affect Scale, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale 21 ; Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness ; and the Self-as-Context scale. A stepwise backwards linear regression and mediation analysis were performed, as well as a cluster analysis of the non-linear ANN upper hidden layer output.Results: Higher levels of alexithymia were associated with increased psychological inflexibility, lower positive affect scores, and lower interoception for the subscales of “not distracting” and “attention regulation.” SAC mediated the relation between emotional regulation and total alexithymia. The ANNs accounted for more of the variance than the linear regressions, and were able to identify complex and varied patterns within the participant subgroupings.Conclusion: The findings were discussed within the context of developing a SAC processed-based therapeutic model for alexithymia, where it is suggested that alexithymia is a complex and multi-faceted condition, which requires a similarly complex, and process-based approach to accurately diagnose and treat this condition. (shrink)

Twaalf inheemse en religieuze leiders uit verschillende werelddelen spreken zich in dit boek uit over de heiligheid van de natuur. Hun eeuwenoude wijsheden inspireren ons om anders te gaan denken over onze omgang met alles wat leeft. Aan het woord komen de Groenlandse sjamaan Angakkorsuaq, de Amerikaanse indianenleider Chief Lane Jr., masaileider Mwarabu, de boeddhistische geestelijke Shih, de dichtende islamgeleerde Ur Rehman Chishti, orthodox rabbijn Slifkin, Maya-priester Sac Coyoy, hindoe-prins Jhala, Aztekenleider Sanchez, leider van de Canadese Bear Clan Wawatie, bisschop (...) Smeets van Roermond en theoloog Valerio van Rochester Cathedral. 0Oeroude natuurwijsheden uit alle streken! (shrink)

Les femmes ont des yeux, des cheveux, une peau, des idées, des jambes, un sexe, une date de naissance, des hommes dans la tête, un problème avec Isaac Newton, de petits poudriers qu'elles sortent de leur sac, et le pouvoir d'arrêter les voitures... Il fallait sans doute le regard d'un homme pour s'en rendre compte. Dominique Quessada est philosophe et écrivain. Il regarde ce qu'il y a pour lui de plus mystérieux et de plus proche à la fois : les (...) femmes. Ce livre s'adresse à elles, mais il peut aussi servir de guide à l'usage des aveugles, sourds et malentendants : les hommes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Breakdown of C i M phy " artes an eta sacs RICHARD A. WATSON WITHIN CARTESIANISMthere arose many problems deriving from conflicts between Cartesian principles. Inadequate attempts to solve these problems were crucial reasons for the breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The major difficulties derived from the acceptance of a dualism of substances seated in a system which included epistemological and (...) causal likeness principles plus an ontological framework in which the categories of substance and modification were exhaustive. The major solutions involved either denying the likeness principles or altering the ontological framework. The first led to unintelligibility ; the second, culminating in Hume, opened the way to non-Cartesian metaphysics. The first section of this study contains a characterization of late seventeenth -century Cartesian metaphysics. The second is an exposition of Foucher 's four major criticisms of this system. In the third section, monistic solutions suggested in Descartes and by Spinoza, Foucher, Leibniz, and Locke are considered; in the fourth, the dualistic solutions of the orthodox Cartesians Rohault, R~gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Le Grand, and Arnauld; and in the fifth, the occasionalist solution of Malebranche. The sixth section is an analysis of these orthodox and occasionalist solutions, showing how each ultimately fails because of dependence upon the ontology of substance and modification. The seventh section is a consideration of Berkeley and Hume in the Cartesian context. A consideration of their systems as offering solutions to Cartesian problems illuminates in new light both the systems and the problems. In broad terms, this study moves from a consideration of problems arising from an ontology of two substances, to a consideration of problems arising from the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The Cartesians were concerned with relationships between two substances, but they saw no difficulties connected with the relationship between a substance and its modifications (or properties). Berkeley's treatment (deriving from Male- [177] 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY branche) of the relationships between mind and idea, and between mind and notion, is illuminated by a consideration of the extent to which he took these relationships for granted in the Cartesian way, and of the extent to which he saw difficulties in the relationship between substance and modification. The Berkeleian solution to Cartesian problems, like that of Malebranche before him, was not successful; Malebranche belittled, and Berkeley denied the dualism of substances, but neither philosopher could break entirely with the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The final breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics came with Hume, who, in providing the culmination of a most important trend in modern philosophy, opened the way to new metaphysics and became the father of contemporary philosophy. I A model late seventeenth-century Cartesian metaphysical system. The last grand expositor of the Cartesian philosophy was Antoine Le Grand who in 1694 published An Entire Body of Philosophy. The characterization of the late seventeenth-century Cartesian system given below follows Le Grand's exposition more closely than others, but it also incorporates elements from those of Rohault, R6gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Malebranche, and Arnauld.1 None of these philosophers professed a system of exactly the sort this characterization pictures, nor is it implied here that they do. The guide and rationale for drawing from them such a model Cartesianism is the polemical writing of Simon Foucher. Foucher's series of attacks upon Cartesianism (of which the second is his criticism of Malebranche of 1675, Critique de la Rdcherche de la veritd) give clearly the most important objections against Cartesian metaphysics.2The system outlined below, while more com1Le Grand, Antoine, An Entire Body of Philosophy According to the Principles of the Famous Renate des Cartes (London, 1694); Rohault, Jacques, Traitd de physique (Paris, 1671); R6gis, Pierre-Sylvain, Syst~me de philosophie, contenant la logique, la mdtaphysique, la physique et la morale (Lyon, 1690); Desgabets, Robert, Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la veritd, oCt l'on decouvre le chemin qui conduit aux connoissances solides. Pour servir de rdsponse gtla Lettre d'un academicien (Paris, 1675); La Forge, Louis de, Traitd de l'dme humaine, de ses facultds et fonctions et de son union avec le corps, d'apr~s les principes de... (shrink)

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it (...) in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant’s concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity. (shrink)

Neo-positivism is dead. Let that imperfect designation stand for the project that dominated and defined the philosophy of science, especially in its Anglophone form, during the fifty or so years following the end of the Second World War. While its critics were many,1 its death was slow, and some think still to find a pulse.2 But die it did in the cul-de-sac into which it was led by its own faulty compass.

Hydranencephaly is a developmental malady, where the cerebral hemispheres of the brain are reduced partly or entirely too membranous sacs filled with cerebrospinal fluid. Infants with this malady are presumed to have reduced life expectancy with a survival of weeks to few years and which solely depends on care and fostering of these individuals. During their life span these individuals demonstrate behaviours that are termed “vegetative” by neuroscientists but can be comparable to the state of being “aware” or “conscious”. Based (...) on the most simplified definition for consciousness i.e. “awareness” or “to be aware”, these individuals are undeniably aware of their existence and therefore should be termed “conscious”. The bigoted approach of neuroscience towards understanding consciousness is usually linked with the cortex of the brain and therefore a malady as hydranencephaly poses a great challenge to this field. This paper is a compilation of behaviours and aptitudes observed in several cases of hydranencephaly which suggests, that consciousness is not just a brain process, but is a highly quantum computed process that follows laws of quantum physics, giving rise to the subjective experience of consciousness in these individuals. (shrink)

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it (...) in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant's concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity. (shrink)

Data are never free of philosophical encumbrances. Nevertheless, philosophical issues are often considered peripheral to method and evidence. Historical perspectives likewise are not considered integral to most data-driven disputes in contemporary psychological science. This paper examines the history of the investigation of hypnosis over the last 75 years to illuminate how evidence and method are entangled with epistemology and ontology, how new research directions are forged by changes in the cultural and philosophical landscape, and how unacknowledged philosophical assumptions can result (...) in confusion and empirical cul-de-sacs. Theoretical disputes that appear to be simple empirical matters often entail hidden philosophical issues, and apparent historical continuity at the theoretical level can belie discontinuity at the ontological level. The lesson of hypnosis is that philosophical analysis is as important as methodological rigor. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)