In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Hypatia 14.4 (1999) 186-191 -/- [Access article in PDF] Simone De Beauvoir: a Critical Reader. Edited by Elizabeth Fallaize. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. As this special volume attests, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in Simone de Beauvoir. A number of books on her have been published in the last several years. However, Elizabeth Fallaize's book, Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader (1998), occupies (...) a special niche. Many of its essays are excerpts from studies done of Beauvoir's work before this latest renaissance. Some of these studies are not in print in the United States. Some are perhaps unfamiliar to present-day readers or those from different disciplines. In addition, the articles reprinted here are otherwise not easily accessible. Fallaize has performed an important service by gathering them all in one place and by carefully editing, presenting, and, in some cases, translating them. -/- The book is divided into three sections, the first entitled "Readings of The Second Sex." Aside from Judith Okely's piece that assesses Beauvoir's chapter on myths from an anthropological standpoint, the essays mainly address the philosophical aspects of this work. Beauvoir herself of course swore that she was not a philosopher and that Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness (1953) was the sole philosophical foundation for all her work. Some recent analyses have attempted to turn this picture on its head by arguing that Beauvoir was a central influence on, or even the origin of, the philosophical doctrines put forward in Being and Nothingness. None of the writers in this book addresses this issue. But two emphasize Beauvoir's intellectual independence from Sartre. -/- The Swedish scholar Eva Lundgren-Gothlin argues that Beauvoir turned to G. W. F. Hegel to find a satisfactory theoretical model with which to explain the subjugation of women (Lundgren-Gothlin's essay is taken from her book [End Page 186] Sex and Existence [1996]) . In opposition to other scholars, she argues that the French Hegelian Alexandre Kojève, not Sartre, influenced Beauvoir's interpretation of Hegel. Following Hegel and Kojève, Beauvoir envisioned a possible resolution to the struggle for recognition—reciprocal recognition—whereas Sartre's view of self-other relations in Being and Nothingness rules such reciprocity out. However, Lundgren-Gothlin judges, Beauvoir was not critical enough of the sexist presuppositions of Hegel's thought, citing the same pronouncements Beauvoir makes that subsequent feminists have criticized. -/- Another piece that stresses Beauvoir's philosophical originality is "Beauvoir: The Weight of Situation," taken from Sonia Kruks's book Situation and Human Existence (1990). For some time, Kruks has been doing excellent work placing Beauvoir within the wider phenomenological tradition. In this piece, she argues that, starting with the early essay Pyrrhus et Cinéas (1944) and culminating in The Second Sex (1989), Beauvoir elaborated a more nuanced position on the nature and extent of human freedom than Sartre did in Being and Nothingness. According to Beauvoir, human freedom, which Sartre dramatically proclaims is absolute, can under some conditions, notably conditions of severe oppression, "be reduced to no more than a suppressed potentiality" (Fallaize 1998, 57). In The Second Sex, Beauvoir definitively breaks with the philosophical framework of Being and Nothingness by implying that a woman's situation is a general one, not individually self-constituted, and one that she cannot transcend by an act of free choice. The phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty provides a better foundation for Beauvoir's conception of subjectivity as socially mediated and embodied than does Sartre's philosophy, Kruks suggests. -/- Another piece in this section, Judith Butler's landmark essay "Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex" (1986), highlights Beauvoir's philosophical originality in a different way. In her introduction, Fallaize points out how this essay served as a foundation for Butler's own subsequent work on a performative theory of gender. Butler argues that Beauvoir's claim that one is not born but becomes a woman implies that gender is socially constructed and not natural, as people have insisted for centuries. But to the extent that we become women, gender is not something... (shrink)

In order to solve problems, humans are able to synthesize apparently unrelated concepts, take advantage of serendipitous opportunities, hypothesize, invent, and engage in other similarly abstract and creative activities, primarily through the use of their visual systems. In _Scenario Visualization_, Robert Arp offers an evolutionary account of the unique human ability to solve nonroutine vision-related problems. He argues that by the close of the Pleistocene epoch, humans evolved a conscious creative problem-solving capacity, which he terms scenario visualization, that enabled them (...) to outlive other hominid species and populate the planet. Arp shows that the evidence for scenario visualization -- by which images are selected, integrated, and then transformed and projected into visual scenarios -- can be found in the kinds of complex tools our hominid ancestors invented in order to survive in the ever-changing environments of the Pleistocene world. Arp also argues that this conscious capacity shares an analogous affinity with neurobiological processes of selectivity and integration in the visual system, and that similar processes can be found in the activities of organisms in general. The evolution of these processes, he writes, helps account for the modern-day conscious ability of humans to use visual information to solve nonroutine problems creatively in their environments. Arp's account of scenario visualization and its emergence in evolutionary history suggests an answer to two basic questions asked by philosophers and biologists concerning human nature: why we are unique; and how we got that way. Robert Arp is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Center for Biomedical Ontology. His areas of specialization include philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind. He is the author of numerous articles and the forthcoming An Integrated Approach to the Philosophy of Mind. (shrink)

Extinction deeply colors the way we think about conservation and the role of humans in nature. It is easy to overlook how recently, in fact, it has entered our consciousness. Only in the last two centuries has science sought to critically study life's origins, development, and diversification. Only in the last several generations have we identified and calibrated life's five major extinction events and speculated on their causes and effects. And only in recent decades have we come to appreciate the (...) still‐unfolding fate of life's diversity under the increasing influence of humanity. The story of extinction has continually changed as this monumental process of interdisciplinary synthesis and imagination has unfolded. Geology, paleontology, taxonomy, biogeography, and evolutionary biology have allowed us to comprehend the deep temporal and broad spatial dynamics of the extinction story. Archaeology, cultural anthropology, and environmental and economic history have illuminated the role of humans in altering the trajectory of species, landscapes, and ecosystems over the millennia. Ecology, genetics, population biology, and conservation biology have revealed the more recent patterns in life's vulnerability and resilience. As a phenomenon, extinction is as old as life itself. As a story shaping our consciousness, values, and intentions, it is still new. And it is uncomfortable. (shrink)

Edited and introduced by Robert Arp, _Revisiting Aquinas’ Proofs for the Existence of God_ is a collection of new papers written by scholars focusing on the famous Five Proofs or Ways for the existence of God put forward by St. Thomas Aquinas near the beginning of his unfinished tome, _Summa Theologica_.

In the era of “big data,” science is increasingly information driven, and the potential for computers to store, manage, and integrate massive amounts of data has given rise to such new disciplinary fields as biomedical informatics. Applied ontology offers a strategy for the organization of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, logic, and philosophy. This book provides an introduction to the field of applied ontology that is of (...) particular relevance to biomedicine, covering theoretical components of ontologies, best practices for ontology design, and examples of biomedical ontologies in use. After defining an ontology as a representation of the types of entities in a given domain, the book distinguishes between different kinds of ontologies and taxonomies, and shows how applied ontology draws on more traditional ideas from metaphysics. It presents the core features of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now used by over one hundred ontology projects around the world, and offers examples of domain ontologies that utilize BFO. The book also describes Web Ontology Language (OWL), a common framework for Semantic Web technologies. Throughout, the book provides concrete recommendations for the design and construction of domain ontologies. (shrink)

Beauvoir's essay “Pyrrhus and Cineas” serves as an excellent introduction to existentialism for students. People today still try to bring meaning to their lives in the ways she examines: through religion, humanitarianism, the scientific worldview, or a focus on the present moment (inspired nowadays by the West's fascination with Eastern mysticism). She points out the numerous questions these points of view leave unanswered. Her existentialist conclusion is that we ourselves give meaning to our lives and cannot justify our life decisions (...) solely by appeal to external standards. (shrink)

Die Autoren sind katholische Priester und stellen das christliche Menschenbild und die Ethik der Gesundheitssorge in den Mittelpunkt. Herausgearbeitet wird die ihrer Ansicht nach besondere ethische Verantwortung der Pflegekräfte in ihren Beziehungen zu Patienten, Angehörigen und Ärzten bei Fragen der Lebens- und Sterbehilfe.

The failure of conventional quantum theory to recognize time as an observable and to admit time operators is addressed. Instead of focusing on the existence of a time operator for a given Hamiltonian, we emphasize the role of the Hamiltonian as the generator of translations in time to construct time states. Taken together, these states constitute what we call a timeline. Such timelines are adequate for the representation of any physical state, and appear to exist even for the semi-bounded and (...) discrete Hamiltonian systems ruled out by Pauli’s theorem. However, the step from a timeline to a valid time operator requires additional assumptions that are not always met. Still, this approach illuminates the issues surrounding the construction of time operators, and establishes timelines as legitimate alternatives to the familiar coordinate and momentum bases of standard quantum theory. (shrink)

1929. Contents: Art and the Creation of Beauty; Art the Language of Feeling.

In The Devil and Philosophy, 34 philosophers explore questions about one of the most recognizable and influential characters (villains?) of all time. From Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion to Bram Stoker's Dracula to Darth Vader to Al Pacino's iconic performance in The Devil's Advocate, this book demonstrates that a little devil goes a long way. From humorous appearances, as in Kevin Smith's film Dogma and Chuck Palahniuk's novels Damned and Doomed, to more villainous (...) appearances, such as Gabriel Byrne's cold outing as Satan in End of Days, The Devil in Philosophy proves that the Devil comes in many forms. Are there any good arguments for the actual existence of the Devil? Does demonic evil thrive in Gotham City? Can humans really be accountable for all evil? Which truths about the Devil are actual facts? Is Milton correct, in that the Devil believes he is doing good? Through the lenses of Jung, Kant, Kundera, Balkan, Plato, Bradwardine, Aristotle, Hume, Blackburn, Descartes, Lavey, Thoreau, and Aquinas, The Devil and Philosophy takes a philosophical look at one of time's greatest characters. (shrink)

Silencing of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs), by DNA methylation, is well known in adult cancers. However, based on the “stem cell” theory of tumorigenesis, the early epigenetic events arising in malignant precursors remain unknown. A recent report1 demonstrates that, while pluripotent embryonic stem cells lack DNA methylation and possess a “bivalent” pattern of activating and repressive histone marks in numerous TSGs, analogous multipotent malignant cells derived from germ cell tumors (embryonic carcinoma cells) gain additional silencing modifications to those same genes. (...) These results suggest a possible mechanism by which aberrant differentiation, mediated by histone and DNA methylation, instigates tumor progression. BioEssays 29:842–845, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractScience and technology consortia provide a viable solution for the recent unsustainable academic growth in biomedical research.

There is a two-fold problem the phenomenologist must face: the first has to do with thinking like a phenomenologist given that one is always already steeped in the mundane sphere; the second has to do with the phenomenologist entering into dialogue with those scientists, psychologists, sociologists and other laypersons who still remain in the mundane sphere. I address the first problem by giving an Husserlian-inspired account of the movement from the mundane to the transcendental, and show that there are decent (...) prospects for getting life-world folks to start thinking like phenomenologists. I address the second problem by showing that Husserl has himself caught in a dilemma: either the reduction takes place and no communication is possible between phenomenologist and non-phenomenologist, or the reduction does not take place and the phenomenological method remains a psychological makeshift, supposedly accessible to Husserl and his esoteric followers. (shrink)

This paper is divided into two main sections. In the first, I attempt to show that the characterization of Frege as a redundancy theorist is not accurate. Using one of Wolfgang Carl's recent works as a foil, I argue that Frege countenances a realm of abstract objects including truth, and that Frege's Platonist commitments inform his epistemology and embolden his antipsychologistic project. In the second section, contrasting Frege's Platonism with pragmatism, I show that even though Frege's metaphysical position concerning truth (...) has been criticized as reproachable, I argue that it may be useful for people to think like Platonists while conducting their scientific and philosophical inquiries. (shrink)