The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

A variety of non-human females do not select male partners independently. Instead they favor males having previous associations with other females, a phenomenon known as mate copying. This paper investigates whether humans also exhibit mate copying and whether consistent positive information about a man’s mate value, and a woman’s age and self-perceived mate value (SPMV), influence her tendency to copy the mate choices of others. Female university students (N = 123) rated the desirability of photographed men pictured alone or with (...) one, two, or five women represented by silhouettes. In accordance with the visual arrays, men were described as currently in a romantic relationship; having previously been in one, two, or five relationships; or not having had a romantic relationship in the past 4 years. Women generally rated men pictured with one or two previous partners as more desirable than those with none. Men depicted with five previous partners, however, were found to be less desirable. Younger, presumably less experienced women had a greater tendency to mate copy compared with older women, but high SPMV did not predict greater levels of mate copying. The findings reaffirmed and expanded those suggesting that women do not make mate choices independently. (shrink)

Imperial Plato presents new translations of three introductions to Plato's thought from the second half of the second century CE: the Introduction to Plato by Albinus of Smyrna, Dissertation 11 of Maximus of Tyre, and On Plato and his Teaching by Apuleius of Madaurus. These three presentations of Plato's ideas--one a Greek dialectic introduction with a suggested reading order for Plato's dialogues, another a Greek speech in the sophistic style of the time, and one a lengthy doxological study in Latin--are (...) examples by three distinct authors using divergent methods of the assorted ways in which Plato and Platonism were understood and discussed during the revival of Hellenism and Greek Philosophy, and the period of the Roman Empire often referred to as the Second Sophistic. (shrink)

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism on later Christian and Byzantine rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines better understand the development of Christian and (...) Byzantine rhetoric and philosophy during the third through sixth centuries. (shrink)

The author applies the definitions of surrogacy offered by Donum vitae to the question of embryo adoption and shows that embryo adoption does not in fact constitute an act of surrogacy. The author shows that neither Donum vitae nor Dignitas personae condemns heterologous embryo transfer or embryo adoption per se but only when these acts also involve illicit forms of artificial fertilization or surrogacy. The author suggests that the apparent reason for a lack of endorsement of embryo adoption by Donum (...) vitae and Dignitas personae is pastoral caution, concern for scandal, and the connection between embryo adoption and IVF; it is not because embryo adoption is intrinsically illicit. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.2 (Summer 2011): 249–256. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Limits of Our ObligationsRyan C. MavesDisclaimers. No funding was utilized for this manuscript. Dr. Maves is a retired U.S. Navy officer, and the opinions contained herein are his own. The opinions in this manuscript do not reflect the official opinion of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, nor of the U.S. Government.In 2012, I was a commander in the United States Navy, deployed to the NATO (...) Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar Airfield (KAF), Afghanistan. The KAF Role 3 began as a tent hospital under Canadian command, built along the flight line at Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport as [End Page 176] part of an expanding NATO base. By the time of my arrival, it was a small but capable brick-and-mortar building under U.S. Navy command, with four operating rooms, two CT scanners, and a busy intensive care unit (ICU).Not long before my deployment, the KAF Role 3 was described as one of the busiest trauma hospitals in the world. Casualties arrived every day, usually by helicopter. Blast injuries from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were common, ranging in severity from concussions in passengers in armored vehicles, to multiple amputations from blast injuries with concomitant thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic trauma. KAF had a daytime population of over 30,000 in 2012, and our hospital was effectively the referral center for the region, so patients with non-surgical diagnoses were similarly common: myocardial infarctions, seizures, pulmonary emboli, and endemic infections, to name a few.As an infectious disease (I.D.) specialist, I functioned mainly as a hospitalist, managing patients postoperatively, but I also provided any consultative support when needed. During mass casualty events, the intensivists and I would act as backups in the trauma bay, freeing up the surgeons for the most acutely injured patients. It turned out that an I.D. doctor’s skillset lent itself well to acute trauma evaluations; we are well known for having an eye for fine details, combined with low-grade paranoia. These traits served me well during what I came to describe as “my involuntary trauma fellowship.”Our patients could be divided into five key groups: Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF, including the army and national police), non-Afghan coalition military (mostly U.S. and other NATO members), Afghan civilians, NATO civilian contract staff, and the Taliban. Our approach to each of these groups was different. For all patient groups, we would provide the same emergency care, including acute resuscitation and immediate life-saving surgery. It was after this emergency care period that our management plans diverged.For coalition forces, our next priority after acute resuscitation and stabilization was to assess whether a patient could remain in theater. Stable patients with relatively minor injuries could often undergo rehabilitation at KAF; many personnel could subsequently return to combat duty with their units. More seriously-injured patients would be transported out of Afghanistan within 24-48 hours (if not faster). Usually, this would involve stops at Bagram Airfield near Kabul and then Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before reaching a military hospital in their home countries. There were few limits on whom could be transported. Dedicated critical care air transport teams (CCATT) included intensivists, respiratory therapists, and critical care nurses, who could manage the most unstable patients on board what was effectively a flying ICU. The “lung team” in Landstuhl could fly to KAF to start patients with severe respiratory failure on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and then fly them out on maximal support.NATO civilian contractors would receive comparable care, although the exact details of how they would be transported out of theater would depend on their home countries and the nature of their contract. We cared for one civilian contractor with newly-diagnosed HIV infection whom we were able to stabilize on the ventilator, get him extubated, start on initial antiretroviral therapy, and transport him home with a referral to his local HIV care program.Afghan soldiers were part of the coalition, but there was no distant home country where we could transport them. They were home. After their resuscitations and surgeries, we would arrange transfer to the Kandahar Regional... (shrink)

For Levinas dialogue occurs when one is open to and receptive of the Other. He cautions, however, that although dialogue impedes violence, it should not be pursued unilaterally or vigorously, because this can also lead to violence. The abolition of violence, which is the goal at which dialogue aims, can instead turn violent in the face of unrestrained persuasive discourse. Vigilance and caution must be maintained if dialogue is not to lapse into hostility and aggression. It is important to respect (...) differences and acknowledge insoluble problems in order to avoid animosity. Without recognition and respect, dialogue can become adversarial and antagonistic. (shrink)

Ethical issues arising from public administration are quite complex and difficult. Using a monistic normative ethical approach to these issues may not be very helpful. Thus James Svara’s three-pronged approach to public administration ethics is proposed in order to show its plausibility. The case of Dr Stockman in Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People is examined as a way of demonstrating the significance of Svara’s model.

This paper provides an empirically informed perspective on the notion of responsibility using an ethical framework that has received little attention in the engineering-related literature to date: ethics of care. In this work, we ground conceptual explorations of engineering responsibility in empirical findings from engineering student’s writing on the human health and environmental impacts of “backyard” electronic waste recycling/disposal. Our findings, from a purposefully diverse sample of engineering students in an introductory electrical engineering course, indicate that most of these engineers (...) of tomorrow associated engineers with responsibility for the electronic waste problem in some way. However, a number of responses suggested attempts to deflect responsibility away from engineers towards, for example, the government or the companies for whom engineers work. Still other students associated both engineers and non-engineers with responsibility, demonstrating the distributed/collective nature of responsibility that will be required to achieve a solution to the global problem of excessive e-waste. Building upon one element of a framework for care ethics adopted from the wider literature, these empirical findings are used to facilitate a preliminary, conceptual exploration of care-ethical responsibility within the context of engineering and e-waste recycling/disposal. The objective of this exploration is to provide a first step toward understanding how care-ethical responsibility applies to engineering. We also hope to seed dialogue within the engineering community about its ethical responsibilities on the issue. We conclude the paper with a discussion of its implications for engineering education and engineering ethics that suggests changes for educational policy and the practice of engineering. (shrink)

In the last decade the use of advance directives or living wills has become increasingly common. This paper is concerned with those advance directives in which the user opts for withdrawal of active treatment in a future situation where he or she is incompetent to consent to conservative management but where that incompetence is potentially reversible. This type of directive assumes that the individual is able accurately to determine the type of treatment he or she would have adopted had he (...) or she been competent in this future scenario. The paper argues that this assumption is flawed and provides theoretical and empirical evidence for this. If the assumption is false, and those taking out advance directives do not realise this, then the ethical bases for the use of these advance directives-the maximisation of the individual's autonomy and minimisation of harm-are undermined. The paper concludes that this form of advance directive should be abolished. (shrink)

Objectives: The mental health legislation of most developed countries includes either a dangerousness criterion or an obligatory dangerousness criterion (ODC). A dangerousness criterion holds that mentally ill people may be given treatment without consent if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. An ODC holds that mentally ill people may be given treatment without consent only if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. This paper argues that the dangerousness criterion is unnecessary, (...) unethical and, in the case of the ODC, potentially harmful to mentally ill people and to the rest of the community. Methods: We examine the history of the dangerousness criterion, and provide reasoned argument and empirical evidence in support of our position. Results: Dangerousness criteria are not required to balance the perceived loss of autonomy arising from mental health legislation. Dangerousness criteria unfairly discriminate against the mentally ill, as they represent an unreasonable barrier to treatment without consent, and they spread the burden of risk that any mentally ill person might become violent across large numbers of mentally ill people who will never become violent. Mental health legislation that includes an ODC is associated with a longer duration of untreated psychosis, and probably contributes to a poorer prognosis and an increase risk of suicide and violence in patients in their first episode of psychosis. Conclusions: Dangerousness criteria should be removed from mental health legislation and be replaced by criteria that focus on a patient’s capacity to refuse treatment. (shrink)

Body integrity identity disorder is a very rare condition in which people experience long-standing anguish because there is a mismatch between their bodies and their internal image of how their bodies should be. Most typically, these people are deeply distressed by the presence of what they openly acknowledge as a perfectly normal leg. Some with the condition request that their limb be amputated. 1 We and others have argued that such requests should be acceded to in carefully selected patients.1–4 Consistent (...) with this view, a group at the University of Sydney is developing a programme to better understand and treat BIID and to offer amputation if appropriate. In a recent paper, Patrone argues that such amputations should be prohibited.5 He suggests that authors supporting amputation in BIID depend on analogies with more familiar conditions and then claim that the ‘the desires, choices and requests of BIID patients should be held to exactly the same standards and treated with exactly the same respect as the desires, choices and requests of any more conventional patient’.5 He believes that these analogies are invalid and that therefore the arguments for amputation are invalid.Patrone concentrates a great deal upon whether a decision to have a particular medical intervention is to be regarded as ‘rational’. Unfortunately, he makes no attempt to define what he …. (shrink)

Is there ever any reason for a doctor to lie to a patient? In this paper, we critically review the literature on lying to patients and challenge the common notion that while lying is unacceptable, a related entity--'benevolent deception' is defensible. Further, we outline a rare circumstance when treating psychotic patients where lying to the patient is justified. This circumstance is illustrated by a clinical vignette.

Trafficking and persistence of fetal microchimeric cells (fMCs) and circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been observed in animals and humans, but their consequences in the maternal body and their mechanistic contributions to maternal physiology and pathophysiology are not yet fully defined. Fetal cells and EVs may help remodel maternal organs after pregnancy‐associated changes, but the cell types and EV cargos reaching the mother in preterm pregnancies after exposure to various risk factors can be distinct from term pregnancies. As preterm delivery‐associated (...) maternal complications are rising, revisiting this topic and formulating scientific questions for future research to reduce the risk of maternal morbidities are timely. Epidemiological studies report maternal cardiovascular risk as one of the major complications after preterm delivery. This paper suggests a potential link between fMCs and circulating EVs and adverse maternal cardiovascular outcomes post‐pregnancies, the underlying mechanisms, consequences, and methods for and how this link might be assessed. (shrink)

The slippery slope argument has been the mainstay of many of those opposed to the legalisation of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. In this paper I re-examine the slippery slope in the light of two recent studies that examined the prevalence of medical decisions concerning the end of life in the Netherlands and in Australia. I argue that these two studies have robbed the slippery slope of the source of its power--its intuitive obviousness. Finally I propose that, contrary to the warnings (...) of the slippery slope, the available evidence suggests that the legalisation of physician-assisted suicide might actually decrease the prevalence of non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. (shrink)

A crisis continues to brew within the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) enterprise: productivity continues declining as costs rise, despite ongoing, often dramatic scientific and technical advances. To reverse this trend, we offer various suggestions for both the expansion and broader adoption of modeling and simulation (M&S) methods. We suggest strategies and scenarios intended to enable new M&S use cases that directly engage R&D knowledge generation and build actionable mechanistic insight, thereby opening the door to enhanced productivity. What M&S requirements (...) must be satisfied to access and open the door, and begin reversing the productivity decline? Can current methods and tools fulfill the requirements, or are new methods necessary? We draw on the relevant, recent literature to provide and explore answers. In so doing, we identify essential, key roles for agent-based and other methods. We assemble a list of requirements necessary for M&S to meet the diverse needs distilled from a collection of research, review, and opinion articles. We argue that to realize its full potential, M&S should be actualized within a larger information technology framework—a dynamic knowledge repository—wherein models of various types execute, evolve, and increase in accuracy over time. We offer some details of the issues that must be addressed for such a repository to accrue the capabilities needed to reverse the productivity decline. (shrink)

Due to natural selection pressure, certain aspects of memory may have been selected to give humans a survival advantage. Research has demonstrated that processing information for survival relevance leads to better item memory (i.e., the content of information) compared to control conditions. The current study investigates the effects of survival processing on context memory (i.e., memory for peripheral episodic details) and item memory to better understand when the survival processing memory advantage emerges. In this study, participants viewed objects in either (...) a plausible color, for example a red apple, or in an implausible color, such as a green pie. We chose this color plausibility manipulation because color is a detail that conveys information about the fitness of an item. After studying items in either a survival or moving (control) condition, participants made item memory judgments (did you see this item before?), and two context memory judgments: color context (in which color did you see this item?), and source context (in which condition did you see this item?). Results indicated better item memory for materials processed in the survival relative to moving condition. Critically, for color context there was a condition by plausibility interaction, where memory was best for plausibly colored items in the survival processing condition. There was no difference, however, in source context memory between the survival and moving conditions. These results suggest the survival processing memory advantage extends to some contextual details, but only those details that tap into the survival utility of items, such as color. (shrink)

In response to the need for a more diverse workforce, our medical school developed new policies and procedures that focus on the recruitment and selection of diverse students with a specific focus on those considered underrepresented in medicine. To understand what these students bring to the practice of medicine, researchers investigated their perception of their cultural assets and how they plan to use these assets as physicians. A cross-section of 23 ethnically, culturally, and geographically diverse medical students were interviewed and (...) data were analyzed through phenomenographical methods. The results indicate that students view themselves as having multiple assets that could be of significant value in their future practice of medicine, including: a) an interest in science and access to family members in medicine, b) personal and familial struggles with health, c) self and family as immigrants, and d) strong family and community orientations. Students perceived these as cultural assets because they could directly identify where these assets could be valuable in medicine but questioned how to maintain them throughout medical school. Now that our institution has identified these assets, next steps include administrators' investigation of ways to leverage them through curricular and educational programs. (shrink)

The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work-Family Interface is a response to growing interest in understanding how people manage their work and family lives across the globe. Given global and regional differences in cultural values, economies, and policies and practices, research on work-family management is not always easily transportable to different contexts. Researchers have begun to acknowledge this, conducting research in various national settings, but the literature lacks a comprehensive source that aims to synthesize the state of knowledge, theoretical progression, (...) and identification of the most compelling future research ideas within field. The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work-Family Interface aims to fill this gap by providing a single source where readers can find not only information about the general state of global work-family research, but also comprehensive reviews of region-specific research. It will be of value to researchers, graduate students, and practitioners of applied and organizational psychology, management, and family studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Full Collection of Personal NarrativesZohar Lederman, Ola Ziara, Rachel Coghlan, Oksana Sulaieva, Anna Shcherbakova, Oleksandr Dudin, Vladyslava Kachkovska, Iryna Dudchenko, Anna Kovchun, Lyudmyla Prystupa, Yuliya Nogovitsyna, Ghaiath Hussein, Kathryn Fausch, P. P. Kyaw, Ayesha Ahmad, Richard W Sams II, Handreen Mohammed Saeed, Artem Riga, Ryan C. Maves, Elizabeth Dotsenko, Irina Deyneka, Eva V. Regel, and Vita Voloshchuk• An Unsettling Affair• How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our (...) Pain• Adjusting Laboratory Practices to the Challenges of Wartime• Why We Stay• A Semi-Personal Story from a Ukrainian NGO Professional (or a Semi-Professional Story from a Ukrainian Person) Living through the War• When Ethics Survives Where People Do Not: A Story From Darfur• Burma’s Healthcare Under Fire: My Experience as an Exiled Medical Professional• When a Conflict Collapses on a Child: An (Aborted) Medical Evacuation of a Hazara Toddler During the Kabul Airport Blast and the Taliban Takeover• The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of War• Providing Care to a Potential Aggressor: An Ethical Dilemma• One Surgeon’s Experience During Armed Conflict in Ukraine• The Limits of Our Obligations• A Liberating Breath• Soldiers of the Invisible Front: How Ukrainian Therapists Are Fighting for the Mental Health of the Nation Under Fire• Stories of Families with Chronically Ill Pediatric Patients during the War in UkraineCopyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

The co-occurrence of stress-induced posttraumatic stress disorder and obesity is common, particularly among military personnel but the link between these conditions is unclear. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and obesity manifest other physical and psychological problems, which significantly diminish their quality of life. Current understanding of the pathways connecting stress to PTSD and obesity is focused largely on behavioral mediators alone with little consideration of the biological regulatory mechanisms that underlie their co-occurrence. In this work, we leverage prior knowledge to systematically (...) highlight such bio-behavioral mechanisms and inform on the design of confirmatory pilot studies. We use natural language processing to extract documented regulatory interactions involved in the metabolic response to stress and its impact on obesity and PTSD from over 8 million peer-reviewed papers. The resulting network describes the propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity through 34 metabolic mediators using 302 documented regulatory interactions supported by over 10,000 citations. Stress jointly affected both conditions through 21 distinct pathways involving only two intermediate metabolic mediators out of a total of 76 available paths through this network. Moreover, oxytocin, Neuropeptide-Y, and cortisol supported an almost direct propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity with different net effects. Although stress upregulated both NPY and cortisol, the downstream effects of both markers are reported to relieve PTSD severity but exacerbate obesity. The stress-mediated release of oxytocin, however, was found to concurrently downregulate the severity of both conditions. These findings highlight how a network-informed approach that leverages prior knowledge might be used effectively in identifying key mediators like OXT though experimental verification of signal transmission dynamics through each path will be needed to determine the actual likelihood and extent of each marker’s participation. (shrink)

Using a longitudinal case study design, we have tracked the recovery of motor function following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) through a multimodal neuroimaging approach. In 2006, Canadian Soldier Captain (retired) Trevor Greene (TG) was attacked with an axe to the head while on tour in Afghanistan. TG continues intensive daily rehabilitation, which recently included the integration of physical therapy (PT) with neuromodulation using translingual neurostimulation (TLNS) to facilitate neuroplasticity. Recent findings with PT+TLNS demonstrated that recovery of motor function occurred (...) beyond conventional time limits, currently extending past 14-years post-injury. To investigate whether PT+TLNS similarly resulted in associated cognitive function improvements, we examined event-related potentials (ERPs) with the brain vital signs framework. In parallel with motor function improvements, brain vital signs detected significant increases in basic attention (as measured by P300 response amplitude) and cognitive processing (as measured by contextual N400 response amplitude). These objective cognitive improvements corresponded with TG’s self-reported improvements, including a noteworthy and consistent reduction in ongoing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings provide valuable insight into the potential importance of non-invasive neuromodulation in cognitive rehabilitation, in addition to initial indications for physical rehabilitation. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes bring artificial intelligence into day to day conversation. Interpreting the force of an utterance, be it an assertion, command, or question, remains a task for achieving this goal. But it is not an easy task. An interpretation of force depends on a speaker’s use of words for a hearer at the moment of utterance. Ascribing force relies on grammatical mood, though not in a straightforward or regular way. We face a dilemma: on one hand, deciding force requires an (...) understanding of the speaker’s words; on the other hand, word meaning may shift given the force in which the words are spoken. A precise theory of how mood and force relate helps us handle this dilemma, which, if met, expands the use of argumentation schemes in language processing. Yet, as our analysis shows, force is an inconstant variable, one that contributes to a scheme’s defeasibility. We propose using critical questions to help us decide the force of utterances. (shrink)

This book demonstrates that there is clear overlap between Leibniz’s “Discourse on Metaphysics” and his “Examination of the Christian Religion,” converging in the moral quality of God and man that Leibniz took as the cornerstone of his system in 1686.

This article, which introduces the special section on The Urban Problematic, takes as its starting point the ways in which categories associated with the ‘urban’ have broken down, such that the once singular and coherent concept ‘city’ has disintegrated in certain ways: the notion has been demythologized, so that representations of the city must now be regarded as partial and invested; and cities themselves have become opaque and unpredictable both to urban scholars and to governments, planners and various kinds of (...) welfare organizations. The indications of crisis, captured for instance by concerns about the slums, favelas and shanty towns of the world’s megacities, also indicate that much of what counts in modern urban life is in some way connected with the marginal, the unofficial, and the supplemental. The article takes a supplemental view of the current state of urban dwelling. This involves at the same time a longer, more patient, historical view in its attempt to understand the current state of the city as part of a shift in the play of heterogeneous forces. With reference to the articles contained in The Urban Problematic, this introductory article finally draws attention to some of the urgent and critical issues of contemporary urbanism. (shrink)

This article commemorates Jean Baudrillard’s career with an account of the consistency of his interventionist logic, the subtlety of his styles of argument and the prescience of his observations. It provides an account of Baudrillard’s sustained engagement with the intensification of simulation that has increasingly codified trends in communications, technology politics, the social, the psychological and economics in the name of functionality. The consistency of Baudrillard’s arguments belies the many superficial judgements made about them, which were anyway often knowingly encouraged (...) by Baudrillard’s rhetorical strategies. (shrink)

In this article we outline the ways in which questions of language have both revealed problems with conceptions of knowledge and suggested constructive ways of addressing those problems. Having examined the limitations of instrumental notions of language, we outline some alternatives, especially those developed from the middle of the 19th and throughout the 20th century. We locate forceful and influential philosophical interventions in the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger and foundational revisions in the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and his (...) structuralist inheritors. We also chart the parallel path of literary theory from Mallarmé through Blanchot and poststructuralism to deconstruction. We conclude, after making some observations about the politicization of language in the works of feminist and postcolonial theorists, with some remarks about how the question of language helps to problematize global knowledge. (shrink)

The article examines the distinction between the state of emergency and the normal state and an inherent undecidability at the base of the distinction. We argue that states of emergency arise from strategic sovereign decisions to divide visible from invisible, enemy from ally, underground economy from above-ground, illegitimate war from legitimate war. The capacity to so divide is manifested, for instance, in the technology of air raid sirens in a way that indicates the momentum of the technicity that covertly underlies (...) sovereign power. The article, furthermore, shows how the distinction between the visible and the invisible can serve as a mystification, perpetuating the state of emergency by disguising the intrinsic connection between the two domains. (shrink)