Until not too many years ago, all logics except classical logic (and, perhaps, intuitionistic logic too) were considered to be things esoteric. Today this state of a airs seems to have completely been changed. There is a growing interest in many types of nonclassical logics: modal and temporal logics, substructural logics, paraconsistent logics, non-monotonic logics { the list is long. The diversity of systems that have been proposed and studied is so great that a need is felt by many researchers (...) to try to put some order in the present logical jungle. Thus Cl91], Ep90] and Wo88] are three recent books in which an attempt is made to develop a general theoretical framework for the study of logics. On the more pragmatic side, several systems have been developed with the goal of providing a computerized logical framework in which many di erent logical systems can be implemented in a uniform way. An example is the Edinburgh LF( HHP91]). (shrink)

RNA localization is a powerful strategy used by cells to localize proteins to subcellular domains and to control protein synthesis regionally. In germ cells, RNA targeting has profound implications for development, setting up polarities in genetic information that drive cell fate during embryogenesis. The frog oocyte offers a useful system for studying the mechanism of RNA localization. Here, we discuss critically the process of RNA localization during frog oogenesis. Three major pathways have been identified that are temporally and spatially separated (...) in oogenesis. Each pathway uses a different mechanism to effect RNA localization. In some cases, localization elements within the 3' untranslated region have been identified and have provided unique insights into the localization process. This important field is still in its infancy, however, and much remains to be learned. BioEssays 21:546–557, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Activating Transcription Factor-2 is a sequence-specific DNA-binding protein that belongs to the bZIP family of proteins and plays diverse roles in the mammalian cells. In response to stress stimuli, it activates a variety of gene targets including cyclin A, cyclin D and c-jun, which are involved in oncogenesis in various tissue types. ATF-2 expression has been correlated with maintenance of a cancer cell phenotype. However, other studies demonstrate an antiproliferative or apoptotic role for ATF-2. In this review, we summarize the (...) signaling pathways that activate ATF-2, as well as its downstream targets. We examine the role of ATF-2 in carcinogenesis with respect to other bZIP proteins, using data from studies in human cancer cell lines, human tumours and mouse models, and we propose a potential model for its function in carcinogenesis, as well as a theoretical basis for its utility in anticancer drug design. (shrink)

ExcerptVassilios Paipais, ed. Theology and World Politics: Metaphysics, Genealogies, Political Theologies. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Pp. xiv + 349. Political theology represents one of the most fundamental subfields of contemporary political theory and international political theory. Since the 1920s, when Carl Schmitt introduced the respective terminology in the broader field of social and political sciences, political theology has developed in a dynamic way, composing, one way or another, a broader interdisciplinary field in which philosophy, theology, and politics are fruitfully interconnected.

Based on A. P. D. Mourelatos's "Events, Processes, and States", an overview of the literature on „verb types‟ is provided in this paper;the basic conceptual, logical and grammatical tests for the identification of different verb types are also briefly reviewed.Such tests, it is argued, reveal variations in a verb’s grammatical and/or lexical aspect; accordingly, verb types should be viewed as regularities governing aspectual variation within and across sentences. Verb types are not associated with particular verbs, predicates or sentences; rather, a (...) verb type is the sum of ways in which a verb‟s aspect may vary. In other words, verb types describe the possibilities for a verb to appear in one or another of a series of interrelated constructions. Verb types are verbal possibilities or, to use B. L. Whorf‟s apt term, fashions of speaking which cut across typical grammatical classifications. It is further argued that verb types, as “mere” fashions of speaking, cannot provide a firm basis for any metaphysics of „situation types‟; i.e., the metaphysics of verb types cannot be founded on their linguistics. (shrink)

On the basis of Poincaré and Weyl’s view of predicativity as invariance, we develop an extensive framework for predicative, type-free first-order set theory in which $\Gamma _0$ and much bigger ordinals can be defined as von Neumann ordinals. This refutes the accepted view of $\Gamma _0$ as the “limit of predicativity”.

In this article I consider the normative and axiological dimension of Simmel’s thought. Building on previous interpretations, I argue that although Simmel cannot be interpreted as a systematic normative theorist, the issue of values and the normative standpoint can nevertheless be traced in various aspects of his multifarious work. This interpretive turn attempts to link Simmel’s obscure theory of value with his epistemological relationism. Relationism may offer a counterweight to Simmel’s value-pluralism, since it points to normative elements (e.g. internal teleology, (...) justice) that can contribute to the reconciliation between incommensurablity of forms and totality. Axiological and normative concerns (of a Hegelian source) survive also in his metaphysics of life, pointing beyond a merely Bergsonian and conservative Lebensphilosophie. I conclude with some thoughts on how this normative rethinking of Simmel’s thought can contribute towards more adequate appreciations of Simmel’s overall theory. (shrink)

Addison and Steele’s legacy on polite manners has been widely acknowledged as a hallmark of the Scottish Enlightenment’s tradition. On the other hand the place of courtly, ‘French’ politeness within the Scottish Enlightenment is much less debated. Conceiving the European Enlightenment as a status quo built on ‘French manners and English liberty’, as Pocock perfectly synthesizes1, points out to the restrictions imposed on religious fanaticism and warfare by the ‘jus gentium’ and European civility. In my paper I aim to shift (...) the attention to the seemingly obvious fact that manners, the backbone of European civility, originate in court, and Versailles was the court par excellence. In this context I explore Adam Smith’s struggle to strip politeness and civility of its aristocratic components. In the heart of the matter lies the strange idea of courtoisie without a court, of propriety that should overcome formal politeness i.e. imitation of aristocratic manners. (shrink)

Sophie de Grouchy, marquise de Condorcet, réinterprète la doctrine de la sympathie propre à la tradition moraliste écossaise dans le sens d’une réévaluation de ses origines physiologiques, ce qui affecte profondément ses dimensions morales et sociales. Dans le cadre d’un rousseauisme compassionnel, elle transforme Adam Smith en un républicain sentimentaliste modéré, précurseur des Idéologues. Elle s’emploie pour cela à montrer que la déférence envers le pouvoir établi, surtout la royauté, érigée par Adam Smith en servilité quasi fétichiste envers les puissants (...) et les rois, doit être réexaminée dans le cadre d’une économie affective post-révolutionnaire. Malgré le risque d’un mimétisme affectif enflammé par une rhétorique démagogique, Sophie de Grouchy mise sur la moralisation de l’identification avec la souffrance humaine, et sur sa régulation par des lois et institutions réformées pour tenir compte d’une nature humaine profondément sympathique. L’institutionnalisation de la sympathie morale est censée porter remède aux tragédies dues à la ségrégation sociale. En revanche, Adam Smith souligne à la fois la corruption morale due à l’adulation des puissants, et l’illusion socialement utile d’un imaginaire collectif cultivé par la tragédie classique et peuplé d’idéalisations du statut social. Adam Smith explore en outre d’une façon originale une dimension quasi psychanalytique de l’idéal social du moi qui anticipe la problématisation du culte du chef, là où la marquise se contente de critiquer le meneur de foule. (shrink)

Adam Smith not only champions commerce, he also criticizes it. In this criticism Smith draws critically upon a long-standing concern in enlightenment’s culture about the proper basis of political and moral life. For the purposes of this chapter, we can identify two interrelated dimensions in Smith’s analysis of the relation between corruption and commerce. He focuses on atavistic remainders of pre-modern, feudal, or aristocratic aspects of behaviour within the heart of commercial society and considers obsequiousness as emblematic of dependent socio-economic (...) relationships while, simultaneously, he raises the issue of distinct socio-economic, moral and political forms of commercial corruption, endemic to the core of commercial polity. (shrink)

In his famous Der Nomos der Erde, while discussing the foundational role of Francisco de Vitoria’s work for the emergence of international law, especially with regard to the legal and political justifications of the territorial conquest of a new world, Carl Schmitt—quite well-known as an enemy of modern and contemporary humanism—offers the following reflection.

Zemach's arguments have gone to show that terms might be rigid designators in ordinary language even though they are not natural kind terms. It has been argued that his argument is inconclusive. However it has been claimed that Putnam's argument is much too strong for it would preclude interesting scientific hypotheses about identity between what appear to be different substances, solely on the grounds of modal necessity.It has been shown that rigid designators can be disjunctive but that this possibility is (...) not a foregone conclusion, as Zemach would have us believe. We have to allow for differences between how wesingled out the extension of a natural kind termin the past and how we intend to single out such extensionin the future. Language is not inherently conservative. There is much room for reformist manoevres. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A0985038 00002. (shrink)

PREFACE This essay developed from ideas in my doctoral thesis submitted to the Hebrew University in 1977. Chapter three has been amended as regards one of ...

Nel 1589 Hercole Filogenio scrisse un discorso che intitolò _Dell’eccellenza della donna_, con l’intento di allinearsi “all’opinione di coloro che si sforzano scoprire l’errore di molti, quali tanto si affannano in avilire il feminil sesso” e dedicò il suo scritto a Flavia Peretti Orsina, donna distinta e dallo spirito inquieto, che con i suoi interessi contribuì allo sviluppo della società dell’epoca. Nel suo tentativo di preservare le donne dal biasimo manifestato dal maschilismo egemone e, allo stesso tempo, elogiare le loro (...) virtù, Filogenio propone due conclusioni, l’analisi e l’approfondimento delle quali, per mezzo di un’argomentazione valida, costituiscono il nucleo testuale della sua opera. L’articolo presenta e analizza i ragionamenti che Filogenio sviluppa nella seconda parte del suo discorso sui quali intende imperniare la dimostrazione della seconda conclusione: che la Donna non è superiore né inferiore all’Uomo, ma simile e uguale per nobiltà, eccellenza e perfezione. (shrink)

This study is dedicated to exploring the ways in which Kierkegaard provides a criterion for thinking about the principles of plurality when, in the context of distinguishing between Socrates and Christ, between different conceptions of difference—between those that support the difference of the other and those that do not—he writes that, just as no one must separate what God has joined, so no one must join what God has separated. When Kierkegaard then makes central to faith the incommensurability of single (...) individuals, he indicates that the inviolable singularity of self and other is the one principle that can be true for all—that can be plural—since it is the one principle that is inclusive of all. In my paper I argue through Kierkegaard that the relationship between the singular and the plural embraces the paradox of absolute difference, the paradox of difference as absolute: the single individual exists only by standing in absolute relation to all others as absolute; the plural exists only insofar as it involves the commitment to the singular standard that, as absolute, preserves the difference of all. (shrink)

Through reading Kierkegaard and Derrida together I argue that deconstruction has its historical origin in, and goes no further than, biblical principles. I begin with an analysis of the complexities in Kierkegaard’s exposition of the biblical command to love the neighbor: in showing the command to express the deconstructionof originary presence, Kierkegaard appears to invoke as central to it the apparent binary opposition between divine and human being. I next turn to the Derridean deconstruction of binary opposites and particularly to (...) Derrida’s insistence that deconstruction is justice and that it never proceeds without love. In then engaging Kierkegaard’s critical distinction between ancient Greek and biblical thought, as well as Derrida’s response to issues posed by such a distinction, I show that the deconstruction of Kierkegaard can proceed only on the basis of principles whose origin is biblical and, therefore, that ideas central to Derridean deconstruction, including différance and the supplement, presuppose and express the biblical concept of neighbor. (shrink)

The extreme asceticism that Kierkegaard attributes to Christianity in The Moment and Late Writings is discussed in this essay as the challenge to the single individual in the present age. His polemic against Christendom is examined in terms of the interrelationship between the concept of neighbor, which he develops in Works of Love, and the concept of history, which he develops in both his pseudonymous and his acknowledged texts and which involves the distinction between the ancient Greek and biblical worlds. (...) I argue that it is the interrelationship of these two concepts—neighborly love and history—that allows us to see the way in which his texts provide the hermeneutical principles through which the extreme asceticism of the Moment and thus his challenge there to the single individual can be appropriated. (shrink)

When, in The Gay Science, Nietzsche poses the question of how the natural sciences are possible, he insists that they depend not on a principle that is natural but on the will to truth, the will not to deceive even oneself, with which, he holds, ?we stand on moral ground.? Yet, that the natural sciences stand on ground that is moral also means, for Nietzsche, that their origin is to be located in ?a faith that is thousands of years old,? (...) a faith that, in the Genealogy of Morals, he develops as presupposing what he calls the ascetic ideals of Judaism and Christianity. Further, in holding that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are biblical, Nietzsche goes on to indicate that, like the natural sciences, his own critical position, unconditionally honest atheism, is, in forbidding itself ?the lie involved in belief in God,? not opposed to, but is rather an expression of, Judaism and Christianity's ascetic ideals. In addressing the interrelationships among the religious, the secular, and the natural sciences in light of Nietzsche, I argue that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are not natural but that are no less religious than secular. (shrink)

In my paper I examine the relationship between biblical principles and modern western philosophy. I begin with various biblical passages, including the twice-told tale of the miracle of the loaves and fish from the Gospel of Matthew, the story of creation, and the story of Adam and Eve, contrasting them with what I argue are the non-tales of Plato’s Republic. I then move on to modern philosophical texts—Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Kierkegaard in order to examine the idea that what (...) constitutes the ‘twice’ in our modern twice-told tales is the biblical, self-reflexive recognition that it is the core of values underpinning our stories—love of neighbor—that is itself the story that we tell. (shrink)