Polycomb group proteins are evolutionary conserved chromatin‐modifying complexes, essential for the regulation of developmental and cell‐identity genes. Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional regulation is provided by two multi‐protein complexes known as Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and 2 (PRC2). Recent studies positioned PRC1 as a foremost executer of Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional control. Mammalian PRC1 complexes can form multiple sub‐complexes that vary in their core and accessory subunit composition, leading to fascinating and diverse transcriptional regulatory mechanisms employed by PRC1 complexes. These mechanisms include PRC1‐catalytic activity (...) toward monoubiquitination of histone H2AK119, a well‐established hallmark of PRC1 complexes, whose importance has been long debated. In this review, the central roles that PRC1‐catalytic activity plays in transcriptional repression are emphasized and the recent evidence supporting a role for PRC1 complexes in gene activation is discussed. (shrink)

This article studies kabbalistic interpretation of a ritual of unknown origin: the daily recitation of the manna episode (Exod 16:1–36). This episode foregrounds a major theme in the writings of R. Baḥya ben Asher ibn Halawa (c.1255–1340) and many other medieval kabbalists: the cyclical nature of sustaining existence. Baḥya’s interpretation builds on two primary sources: R. Jacob ben Sheshet Gerondi’s commentary on Ps 145 in his kabbalistic polemic Meshiv Devarim Nekhoḥim, and a hermeneutic tradition derived from Hasidic-Ashkenazi biblical exegesis. The (...) article also examines roughly analogous works that illuminate Baḥya’s hermeneutical outlook. (shrink)

Fundamentismus und Skeptizismus-Anarchismus sind zwei entgegengesetzte Positionen in der traditionellen Erkenntnistheorie und in der modernen Wissenschaftstheorie. Zwischen ihnen gibt es einen dritten Standpunkt, den Evolutionismus. Beispiele sind zwei neuere Arbeiten von Putnam und Stegmüller . Im Gegensatz zum logisch-statischen Fundamentismus berücksichtigt der Evolutionismus auch dynamische und naturalistische Ansätze. Stegmüller folgend entlehnen wir in der vorliegenden Untersuchung aus der Sprachphilosophie pragmatische Gesichtspunkte, um die logische Syntax und Semantik, die Werkzeuge des Fundamentismus, zu ersetzen. Wir zeigen die Kraft der Pragmatik bei der (...) Behandlung von Problemen wie Erkenntniswachstum, Begriffswechsel, Theorien- und Bedeutungsdynamik, wissenschaftliche Entdeckung und besonders beim Problem der Inkommensurabilität. Unser nicht-fundamentistischer Vorschlag ist ein heuristisches Modell, das auf der modernen genetischen Theorie basiert. (shrink)

This article examines the attitude toward animals in the Pentateuch and ancient Near Eastern legal codes. Employing a comparative approach, it analyzes criminal and tort law in relation to animals and their carers—stealing and finding animals used in factory farms, the responsibility of watchmen and renters, and that of the legal “owners” of animals who cause damage. Demonstrating how animals form part of the biblical ethical system, in which ethical demands become binding statutes, it looks at why this process only (...) occurred in the Hebrew Bible and not in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. (shrink)

Marx himself would have agreed with such a practical approach to the criticism of his method..... He was led to this position, I believe, by his conviction that a scientific background was urgently needed by the practical politician.

This article explores the association between animals and ethics in the teachings of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, famously known as the Maharal of Prague. The article is divided into three parts. The first will present the Maharal and the nature of his writings; the second will present how the Maharal viewed the essence of animals and their place in the act of creation; and the third part will examine the Maharal’s ethical approach toward animals. I will deal with the (...) Maharal’s philosophy as it is reflected in his extensive writing. (shrink)

Kant argues in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment that the first stage in resolving the problem of teleology is conceiving it correctly. He explains that the conflict between mechanism and teleology, properly conceived, is an antinomy of the power of judgment in its reflective use regarding regulative maxims, and not an antinomy of the power of judgment in its determining use regarding constitutive principles. The matter in hand does not concern objective propositions regarding the possibility of objects (...) or actual features of certain objects, namely, organisms. It is rather a methodological issue as to the appropriate way to explain the generation, development, and function of organisms. Taken in this manner as subjective maxims guiding the explanation and inquiry of organisms, the principles of mechanism and teleology need not necessarily be seen as contradictorily opposed but instead can be combined in the study of organisms. This, however, is not enough to complete the analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. In order to show that there is an antinomy in this case, Kant has to establish that both seemingly conflicting maxims are necessary and natural to the human mind. He does it by grounding them in the ‘special character’ or peculiarity (Eigentümlichkeit) of the human understanding. However, it is not entirely clear just what exactly this peculiarity of the human understanding is. Paul Guyer argues that Kant suggests two different accounts of the peculiarity of the human intellect. According to one account, this peculiarity consists in the fact that our understanding forms general concepts and according to another, in its propensity to proceed from the parts to the whole. I will argue in this paper that Kant puts forward a single account, in which the combination of these two features demonstrate the peculiarity of the human understanding manifested in the encounter with organisms. This account explains the necessity of the regulative maxims of mechanism and teleology, and thus completes Kant’s analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. (shrink)

Face recognition is a computationally challenging classification task. Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) are brain‐inspired algorithms that have recently reached human‐level performance in face and object recognition. However, it is not clear to what extent DCNNs generate a human‐like representation of face identity. We have recently revealed a subset of facial features that are used by humans for face recognition. This enables us now to ask whether DCNNs rely on the same facial information and whether this human‐like representation depends on (...) a system that is optimized for face identification. In the current study, we examined the representation of DCNNs of faces that differ in features that are critical or non‐critical for human face recognition. Our findings show that DCNNs optimized for face identification are tuned to the same facial features used by humans for face recognition. Sensitivity to these features was highly correlated with performance of the DCNN on a benchmark face recognition task. Moreover, sensitivity to these features and a view‐invariant face representation emerged at higher layers of a DCNN optimized for face recognition but not for object recognition. This finding parallels the division to a face and an object system in high‐level visual cortex. Taken together, these findings validate human perceptual models of face recognition, enable us to use DCNNs to test predictions about human face and object recognition as well as contribute to the interpretability of DCNNs. (shrink)

Summary Pluralism and monism are the two current views concerning scientific research and language understanding. Between them there is a third, intermediate, view. We take a procedural methodology of science as exemplified in the work of L. Tondl, and procedural linguistics , as exemplified in the work of B. Harrison, to be representative of this third possibility. Procedures are cognitive, linguistic, and physical processes which, through their hierarchical interconnections can generate fruitful mechanisms . These mechanisms are sensitive to context and (...) operate in heuristic and algorithmic ways. Their similar logical structure points towards a profound unified basis for scientific and linguistic activities, thus providing an interesting bridge between what is achieved by a little child talking to his parents, and a creative scientist struggling to interpret the results of his experiments. (shrink)

How can adverse experiences in early life, such as maltreatment, exert such powerful negative effects on health decades later? The answer may lie in changes to DNA. New research suggests that exposure to stress can accelerate the erosion of DNA segments called telomeres. Shorter telomere length correlates with chronological age and also disease morbidity and mortality. Thus, telomere erosion is a potential mechanism linking childhood stress to health problems later in life. However, an array of mechanistic, methodological, and basic biological (...) questions must be addressed in order to translate telomere discoveries into clinical applications for monitoring health and predicting disease risk. This paper covers the current state of the science and lays out new research directions. (shrink)

Kant’s first antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason deals with the question of the size of the world. The temporal portion of the problem, on which I will focus in this paper, concerns the question of whether the world has a beginning in time or whether it exists eternally. Kant is sometimes understood as arguing that since neither one of the conflicting options can be confirmed, one needs to reject the common mistake of both opponents, namely, that we know (...) the world as a thing in itself, and embrace instead Kant’s transcendental idealism. In view of modern cosmology, Kant’s resolution of the first antinomy may appear outdated. Modern cosmological theories, after all, do suggest that the world evolved from a singular point by a big bang or through a cycle of successive expanding and contracting phases. I wish to argue in this paper that Kant’s analysis of the first antinomy does not involve questions of confirmability and that its lessons apply to modern cosmology as well. Kant’s analysis challenges the view that the world as a whole is a proper object for human investigation, but it does not reject the legitimacy of the cosmological project of explaining the current state of the universe and its evolution in terms of earlier events in the history of the world. It merely shows that modern theories are misguided only insofar as they attempt to affirm that the singular point is the absolute beginning of the world or that the cycle of expansion and contraction is ultimately infinite. Thus, Kant does not deny science as a legitimate avenue of research. He rather keeps cosmology from sliding into the dogmatic paths of traditional cosmological speculations, which purported to account for the absolute origin of the world by means of theological and metaphysical considerations. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment may be rejected as obsolete and attacked from two opposite perspectives. In light of recent advances in biology one can claim contra Kant, on the one hand, that biological phenomena, which Kant held could only be explicated with the help of teleological principles, can in fact be explained in an entirely mechanical manner, or on the other, that despite the irreducibility of biology to physico-mechanical explanations, it is nonetheless (...) proper science. I argue in response that Kant’s analysis of organisms is by no means obsolete. It reveals biology’s uniqueness in much the same way as several current theorists do. It brings to the fore the unique purposive characteristics of living phenomena, which are encapsulated in Kant’s concept of “natural end” and which must be explicated in natural terms in order for biology to become a science. I maintain that Kant’s reluctance to consider biology proper science is not a consequence of his critical philosophy but rather of his inability to complete this task. Kant lacked an appropriate theoretical framework, such as provided later by modern biology, which would enable the integration of the unique features of biology in an empirical system. Nevertheless, as I show in this paper, the conceptual problems with which Kant struggled attest more to the relevance and depth of his insights than to the shortcomings of his view. His contribution to the biological thought consists in insisting on an empirical approach to biology and in providing the essential philosophical underpinning of the autonomous status of biology. (shrink)

Locke and Leibniz are often classified as proponents of compatibilist theories of human freedom, since both maintain that freedom is consistent with determinism and that the difference between being and not being free turns on how one is determined. However, we will argue in this paper that their versions of compatibilism are essentially different and that they have significantly distinct commitments to compatibilism. To this end, we will first analyze the definitions and examples for freedom and necessity that Locke and (...) Leibniz present in sections 8-13 of chapter 21 of the Essay on Human Understanding and the Nouveaux essais respectively, and then conjecture how Locke and Leibniz would have continued the discussion, if they had had the opportunity to engage in an exchange of opinions. In this way, we believe, one will be in a position to understand why Leibniz thinks that Locke’s discussion of freedom “est un des plus prolixes et des plus subtils de son ouvrage.”. (shrink)

Leibniz’s main thesis regarding the nature of space is that space is relational. This means that space is not an independent object or existent in itself, but rather a set of relations between objects existing at the same time. The reality of space, therefore, is derived from objects and their relations. For Leibniz and his successors, this view of space was intimately connected with the understanding of the composite nature of material objects. The nature of the relation between space and (...) matter was crucial to the conceptualization of both space and matter. In this paper, I discuss Leibniz’s account of relational space and examine its novel elaborations by two of his successors, namely, the young Immanuel Kant and the Croat natural philosopher Roger Boscovich. Kant’s and Boscovich’s studies of Leibniz’s account lead them to original versions of the relational view of space. Thus, Leibniz’s relational space proved to be a philosophically fruitful notion, as it yielded bold and intriguing attempts to decipher the nature of space and was a key part in innovative scientific ideas. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the virtual debate between Locke and Leibniz on solidity as proposed in Leibniz’s chapter on solidity in his New Essays on Human Understanding. I first track the oddities of the dialogue presented in the New Essays’ chapter on solidity. In this virtual dialogue, Leibniz’s representative often digresses and sometimes overlooks or misrepresents some of Locke’s most important insights. I then argue that these oddities reflect Leibniz’s sentiment that a productive controversy on this issue cannot be (...) conducted due to his substantial differences with Locke regarding solidity and the nature of matter. These differences are at most indirectly implied in passing in Leibniz’s chapter on solidity and to see them one has to consider other texts presenting Leibniz’s theory of matter. (shrink)

Kant’s first antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason deals with the question of the size of the world. The temporal portion of the problem, on which I will focus in this paper, concerns the question of whether the world has a beginning in time or whether it exists eternally. Kant is sometimes understood as arguing that since neither one of the conflicting options can be confirmed, one needs to reject the common mistake of both opponents, namely, that we know (...) the world as a thing in itself, and embrace instead Kant’s transcendental idealism. In view of modern cosmology, Kant’s resolution of the first antinomy may appear outdated. Modern cosmological theories, after all, do suggest that the world evolved from a singular point by a big bang or through a cycle of successive expanding and contracting phases. I wish to argue in this paper that Kant’s analysis of the first antinomy does not involve questions of confirmability and that its lessons apply to modern cosmology as well. Kant’s analysis challenges the view that the world as a whole is a proper object for human investigation, but it does not reject the legitimacy of the cosmological project of explaining the current state of the universe and its evolution in terms of earlier events in the history of the world. It merely shows that modern theories are misguided only insofar as they attempt to affirm that the singular point is the absolute beginning of the world or that the cycle of expansion and contraction is ultimately infinite. Thus, Kant does not deny science as a legitimate avenue of research. He rather keeps cosmology from sliding into the dogmatic paths of traditional cosmological speculations, which purported to account for the absolute origin of the world by means of theological and metaphysical considerations. (shrink)

Wiggins and Wilbanks (2019) raise a number of interesting concerns vis-à-vis citizen science and research. However, one area of innovation in citizen science that has seen significant advancements...

Leibniz’s interest in the Talmud and in Jewish philosophy and theology in general, is well established in the scholarly literature. In this paper, we suggest a short comparative study of Leibniz’s concept of the monad and the Talmudic idea of “Malchut.” Our study is based, specifically, on a tractate of the Talmud titled Yoma. This tractate is mainly focused on the Jewish Atonement Day, in which Jews are judged by God for their sins in the previous year. In particular, in (...) pages 38a-b of Yoma, the Talmud reads: “By your name they shall call you, and in your place they shall seat you, and from your own they shall give you; No person may touch that which is prepared for another, and one Malchut does not touch another even to the extent of a hairbreadth.” The Talmud suggests here that even though we somehow influence one another’s life, one cannot directly affect others’ predetermined place in the world or interfere in the individual paths prepared for others. In this paper, we aim to indicate the similarities between such Talmudic notions and Leibniz’s ideas in the Monadology – such as the ideas that monads have “no windows” and that a pre-established harmony is set among all monads by God – as a ground for future research. (shrink)

Peacemaking is especially challenging in situations of intractable conflict. Collective narratives in this context contribute to coping with challenges societies face, but also fuel conflict continuation. We introduce the Informative Process Model, proposing that informing individuals about the socio-psychological processes through which conflict-supporting narratives develop, and suggesting that they can change via comparison to similar conflicts resolved peacefully, can facilitate unfreezing and change in attitudes. Study 1 established associations between awareness of conflict costs and conflict-supporting narratives, belief in the possibility (...) of resolving the conflict peacefully and support for pursuing peace among Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. Studies 2 and 3 found that exposure to IPM-based original videos led Israeli-Jews to deliberation of the information presented, predicting acceptance of the IPM-based message, which, in turn, predicted support for negotiations. Study 3 also found similar effects across IPM-based messages focusing on different conflict-supporting themes. We discuss the implications to attitude change in intractable conflicts. (shrink)

The literature on management identifies three models for the relationships between a company’s management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders, as well as the corporation’s goals: the shareholder model of corporate governance, the employee governance model and the stakeholder model. One can identify in current business practice a further model of corporate governance, which may be entitled “the controlling shareholder model”. The goal of this paper is to show that these models are grounded in long-standing philosophical ideas. The philosophical (...) basis of the shareholder model is to be traced to John Locke’s theory of private property; Karl Marx’s approach underlies the employee governance model; the stakeholder model reflects the Aristotelian theory of the golden mean; and the controlling shareholder model expresses Thomas Hobbes’s conception of the sovereign power. We wish to argue that recognizing these philosophical ideas at the basis of the models of corporate governance would facilitate the analysis of the difficulties inherent to these models. We also maintain that this recognition is instrumental in forming a normative position concerning the meaning of corporate governance to present-day society. (shrink)

AimThe neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD.MethodsThe review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis.ResultsThe most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent (...) motor learning; internal modeling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions.InterpretationTaken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier: CRD42020185444. (shrink)

In the fourth line of her first speech in Book 1, to Ilioneus and the Trojan castaways, Dido quotes the first word of the first line of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, and in the fourth line of her second speech, to Aeneas, she quotes the first words of the second line of the De rerum natura. This is not a coincidence but a signal of the importance of Lucretius and Epicureanism for the characterization of Dido in the Aeneid.

Commentators since antiquity have seen connections between Virgil's Dido and the philosophy of the Garden, and several recent studies have drawn attention to the echoes of Lucretius in the first and fourth books of the Aeneid. This essay proposes that there is an even richer and more extensive Epicurean presence intertwined with the Dido episode. Although Virgilian quotations of Lucretius provide the most obvious references to Epicureanism, too narrow a focus on the traces of the De Rerum Natura (...) obscures important resonances with Virgil's more obvious models: the Odyssey and Apollonius' Argonautica. Reversion to Homer and Apollonius, however, does not dim the Epicurean aura around Dido. Rather: echoes of Nausikaa and other Phaeacian traditions reinforce Dido's links with the Garden. At play here is a widespread ancient tradition of disparaging Epicurus by calling him "the Phaeacian philosopher." But by evoking this tradition, Virgil is not necessarily engaging in a standard polemic against the Epicureans. Instead of foreclosing any particular reading, the intertextual modes of the Aeneid turn various possibilities of interpretation over to the reader. (shrink)

Vasari said that Marcantonio Raimondis first engraving after a design by Raphael was the Suicide of Lucretia, but he most likely confused it with the similar but much smaller Suicide of Dido, also engraved by Marcantonio. Following the Didos success Raphael no doubt wished Lucretia to be larger and bolder. The two figures were probably recycled from a group of dancers, perhaps the Muses, projected for a mural decoration; a drawing by Raphael adapted to Lucretia is precisely in the (...) style of his Parnassus studies The hypothesis that Dido and Lucretia were initially conceived as dancers is supported by a montage of the two figures silhouetted and by a glance at contemporary representations of dancing Muses. (shrink)

Dido's Epicureanism is as complex and problematic as Aeneas' much-discussed Stoicism. This paper argues that Virgil's allusions to Lucretius form a consistent pattern: Dido embodies the ironies inherent in Epicureanism as practiced by Virgil's contemporaries, mouthing apparently Lucretian sentiments even as she comes to personify a Lucretian exemplum malum. Yet her fall is largely due to the pervasive supernatural machinery of the Aeneid-divine intervention which Lucretius declares impossible. In Book 1, Virgil employs Lucretian allusions in distinctly un-Lucretian contexts (...) to suggest in Dido a disjunction between words and actions. There is a Lucretian flavor in the description of her initial equanimity, in her injunction to the Trojans to put away fear and cares, and in the scientific rationalism of the song of Iopas. These passages contrast with the sensualism evident in her lavish court and her growing passion for Aeneas-excesses of luxury and love described in words that Lucretius used to condemn them. In Book 4, Virgil more directly refutes Lucretian doctrine about the mortality of the soul and the indifference of the gods. The sarcastic questions of Anna and Iarbas are implicitly answered in such a way as to refute the Epicurean stance. Dido points to the gods' indifference a few seconds before she invokes their aid, and her final submission to Fate occurs in words that Lucretius used to deny its existence. Finally, the departure of Dido's soul recalls Lucretius' atoms of "heat and wind," in ironic contrast to the immortality of her Shade. (shrink)

Les recueils de Vies de femmes illustres, genre littéraire à succès à la Renaissance, utilisent l’exemplarité à des fins didactiques tout autant que polémiques. L’étude de la figure particulière de Didon permet d’envisager les enjeux et modalités de la construction de l’exemplarité féminine. Entre l’amoureuse éplorée de Virgile et l’intransigeante uniuira de Justin, la balance n’est pas égale. Seule Christine de Pizan entreprend de louer l’héroïne virgilienne, tandis que Champier mélange les sources pour en faire une digne épouse. De nombreux (...) auteurs dont Boccace, retiennent l’exemple de cellequi se sacrifia pour garder sa chasteté et sauver sa cité, indiquant par là les cadres fixés à l’héroïsme au féminin. (shrink)

In the so-called ‘Iliadic’Aeneid, Dido is scarcely mentioned. At first sight, Aeneas’ dalliance at Carthage is forgotten when he gets down to the serious business of establishing the Trojans in Italy. But the poem's last mention of Dido is enmeshed in a network of parallel passages elsewhere in theAeneidrelating to tunics and adoption. In the light of similarities between Aeneas and the superficially unimportant Trojan warrior Nisus, these passages bear crucially on the contrast between Aeneas’ public and privatepietas: (...) his obedience to imposed commitments and to chosen ones. In this way, Virgil provides guidance on what motivates Aeneas’ fury in Books 10 and 12. (shrink)

This note brings to light some instances of Vergilian borrowings from Lucretius and Catullus in the composition of the Dido episode. The way in which Vergil adapts these sources and combines them in the depiction of tormented love is discussed and it is suggested that a consequence of this is to invest the image of love eating Dido internally with a significance beyond that of an erotic topos.