Huang-Lao is now generally regarded as a set of ideas that gained currency from the final stages of the Warring States period to well into the Han dynasty. "Huang" stands for Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor; "Lao" refers to Laozi, the "Old Master," who is traditionally regarded as the founder of Daoism. Huang-Lao is thus a combination of ideas attributed to the mythical figures of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi. What those ideas are and how they have manifested themselves in Chinese (...) history remains the subject of heated debate. (shrink)

This essay has two aims. The first is to show that the editors of Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings and some of the writers who contributed to it (especially Ismail Ezzedine, Anar Rzayev, Tawfick Zeyad, Abdel Aziz El-Ahwani, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Alex La Guma, Adonis, Salah Dehni, Luis Bernardo Honwana, Ghassan Kanafany, and Tozaburo Ono) attempted to reconceive of nationalism in a way that would make international solidarity constitutive of the new national projects. It is argued that this is quite different from thinking (...) of the contributors to Lotus as abandoning nationalism in favor of a supranationalist project. The second aim is to show that at least some of the contributors to Lotus thought of themselves as being the vanguard of modernity, and not as the creators of “alternative modernities”. This essay shows that some of the aforementioned contributors to Lotus implicitly drew on standpoint epistemology in order to argue that, due to their struggles against colonialism, racial discrimination, etc., they had a privileged epistemic vantage point from which to criticize modernity in its European form for not being modern enough. (shrink)

Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Brethren of Purity) were the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity of lettered urbanites that was principally based in Basra and Baghdad. This brotherhood occupied a prominent station in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia: Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). This compendium contained fifty-two epistles that offered synoptic explications of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age. Divided (...) into four classificatory parts, it treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. The Ikhwan were learned compilers of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and their Rasa'il constituted a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization. -/- This present volume gathers studies by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic Studies, who are also the editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and first complete annotated English translations of the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', which will be published in the OUP Series that this present volume initiates, as well as being members of the Editorial Board. -/- The chapters of this present volume explore the conceptual and historical aspects of the philosophical and scientific contents of the Rasa'il and their classification, as well as investigating the authorship and dating of this corpus and the impact that the Ikhwan's intellectual tradition exercised in the unfolding of the history of ideas in Islam. (shrink)

In 2022, the Research Center for Islamic Legislation & Ethics (CILE) and the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) submitted a proposal to host the 17th edition of the World Congress of Bioethics. After announcing that the CILE‐WISH proposal was the winning bid, concerns were raised by bioethicists based in Europe and the USA. To address these concerns, the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) developed a dedicated FAQ section, in coordination with the host institutions, for the first time in IAB (...) history. One‐to‐one communication ensued and individual responses were shared with these colleagues. As a continuation of this conversation, we (CILE Acting Director, WISH Research Fellow and Head of Content, and WISH CEO) address the concerns raised in the Letter‐to‐the‐Editor of Bioethics by Graaf et al. As we support the call to revisit some contentious issues within the global community of bioethicists, we maintain that this should be based on meticulously discussed, informed, consistent and equitable criteria. We also argue that mutual learning from diverse cultures and moral traditions is the optimal way for our scholarly community to be truly global and to eschew the flaws ensuing from ethnocentric discourses. (shrink)

In this article, the co-editors of the corporate responsibility: quantitative issues section of the journal provide an overview of the quantitative CSR field and offer some new perspectives on where the field is going. They highlight key issues in developing impactful, theory-driven, and ethically grounded research and call for research that examines complex problems facing businesses and the society (e.g., big data and artificial intelligence, political polarization, and the role of CSR in generating social impact). By examining topics that are (...) under-researched, forward-looking, and socially oriented, scholars can expand the boundary of CSR’s substantive domain and produce research that helps businesses act in a long-term, socially responsible way in this quickly evolving, turbulent environment. They also discuss ways to enhance the methodological rigor of quantitative CSR research and encourage scholars to employ cutting-edge, innovative methods to shed light on the micro-level mechanisms of CSR and reveal patterns and relationships hidden in unstructured big data. (shrink)

In the early 1950s at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, the canonical digital computer was created by John von Neumann. One of the first scientific applications written for this machine was a simulation of numerical symbioorganisms, a prototypical artificial life environment authored by researcher Nils Barricelli. In the decades since, computers have increasingly been used as tools to tackle major questions in biology, including the process of evolution and, more recently, the origins of life itself. Richard (...) Gordon, co-editor of the 2008 volume Divine Intervention and Natural Action posed a challenge to a new generation of artificial life programmers to cast off the temptation to intelligently design simple virtual organisms and go to the root of the matter by creating an origin of (artificial) life. Bruce Damer is answering this challenge with his proposed Evolution Grid (or EvoGrid) project which would assemble the elements of a primordial digital soup within which self-organization, replication and, eventually, an origin of virtual life might be observed. (shrink)

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

Take part... and you will bear witness to the semiotic nature of human animals. This event, commented by Charbel Niño El-Hani (Federal University of Bahia) and chaired by Elma Berisha (Lyceum Institute), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the (...) Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Jamin Pelkey is Associate Professor and Program Director in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Ryerson University, Toronto, where he is also an active faculty member in the Ryerson-York graduate program in Communication & Culture. He serves as Co-Editor of Semiotica, Vice President of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics, and executive board member for the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, and the Semiotic Society of America. Jamin’s research explores semiotic dimensions of language evolution and embodied cognition. He is the recipient of the 2017 Mouton d’Or Award for best article in Semiotica and has edited or co-edited twelve collections in linguistics, anthropology, and semiotics, including Tropological Thought and Action (2022), Cognitive Semiotics (2019), Applied Brand Semiotics (2018), Archaeology of Concepts (2018), Sociohistorical Linguistics in Southeast Asia (2017), Virtual Identities (2016), and The Semiotics of Paradox (2015). His authored books include Dialectology as Dialectic (2011) and The Semiotics of X (2017). He is currently editing Bloomsbury Semiotics, a major reference work in four volumes. *** Charbel N. El-Hani is full professor in the Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. Coordinator of the LEFHBio - History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching Lab and the INCT IN-TREE - National Institute of Science and Technology in Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution. Between January 2020 and July 2021, he was visiting researcher at the CES - Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He works in the areas of philosophy of biology, ecology, ethnobiology and science education research. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

Picking up the question of what FLaK might be, this editorial considers the relationship between openness and closure in feminist legal studies. How do we draw on feminist struggles for openness in common resources, from security to knowledge, as we inhabit a compromised space in commercial publishing? We think about this first in relation to the content of this issue: on image-based abuse continuums, asylum struggles, trials of protestors, customary justice, and not-so-timely reparations. Our thoughts take us through the different (...) ways that openness and closure work in struggles against violence, cruel welcomes, and re-arrangements of code and custom. Secondly, we share some reflections on methodological openness and closure as the roundtable conversation on asylum, and the interview with Riles, remind us of #FLaK2016 and its method of scattering sources as we think about how best to mix knowledges. Thirdly, prompted by the FLaK kitchen table conversations on openness, publishing and ‘getting the word out’, we respond to Kember’s call to ‘open up open access’. We explain the different current arrangements for opening up FLS content and how green open access, the sharedit initiative, author request and publisher discretion present alternatives to gold open access. Finally drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit. These wench tactics are alternatives to the more obvious or reported tactic of resignation, or withdrawing academic labour from editing and reviewing altogether. They help us think about brewing editorial time, what ambivalence over our 25th birthday might mean, and how to inhabit painful places. In this, we respond in our own impure, compromised way to da Silva’s call not to forget the native and slave as we do FLaK, and repurpose shrapnel, in our common commitments. (shrink)

Daylight is the primary cue used by circadian clocks to entrain to the day/night cycle so as to synchronize physiological processes with periodic environmental changes induced by Earth rotation.However, the temporal daylight pattern is not the same every day due to erratic weather fluctuations or regular seasonal changes. Then, how do circadian clocks operate properly in varying weather and seasons? In this paper, we discuss the strategy unveiled by recent studies of the circadian clock of Ostreococcus tauri, the smallest free‐living (...) eukaryotic organism. It combines mechanisms controlling light inputs and clock sensitivity, shaping both the dynamics of the core circadian oscillator and its forcing by light so as to ensure stable and precise synchronization in all weather and seasons.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Another place, another timer: Marine species and the rhythms of life Abstract. (shrink)

Many journals and publishers employ online submission systems to process manuscripts. In some cases, one “template” format exists, but it is then molded slightly to suit the specific needs of each journal, a decision made by the editor-in-chief or editors. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of cases in which OSSs have been abused, mostly by the authorship, either through the creation of fake identities or the use of false e-mail accounts. Although (...) the abusive or fraudulent authors are at fault in such cases, the fact that such cases remained undetected for so long is of concern. Moreover, the current OSSs are imperfect, have security issues and may not be able to detect false information, except through post-submission verification. Sting operations, which involve the submission of false manuscripts with false identities and false affiliations, are no less unethical, and those who abuse the publishing protocol deserve to be as reprimanded as those who abuse OSSs. Finally, I question the ethics of editors or publishers creating OSS accounts on behalf of reviewers prior to obtaining their explicit permission. doi: 10.5294/pebi.2016.20.2.3. (shrink)

Uno de los temas clásicos de la literatura árabe, casi desde sus comienzos, es la nostalgia de la tierra natal (al-hani-n ilà l-awta-n). Experiencia dolorosa de extrañamiento, que se nutre de las crisis políticas, la nostalgia ha dado lugar a obras que buscan recrear un pasado o unos lugares amados, que sólo la memoria es capaz de recuperar. En este artículo trato de mostrar cómo se articula la nostalgia de Iraq, y, más concretamente, de Bagdad, dentro del aparato crítico de (...) al-Faray^ ba,da l-�idda de al-Tanu-ji- (329-384/941-994) (con el apoyo de Ni�wa-r al-muha-dara, también de dicho autor) en la edición de, Abbu-d al-�a-ly^i-, publicada en los años setenta. La representación que hace al-Tanu-ji- de la vida cotidiana de la capital abbasí, expresada a través de un lenguaje claro y natural, en el que tienen cabida expresiones populares, suscita en al-�a-ly^i- toda una serie de remembranzas, sobre todo de sus años juveniles, que se desbordan en sus notas, e ilustran costumbres, lugares, usos lingüisticos, canciones o poemas, que perduran desde la época de al-Tanu-ji- hasta la del editor. (shrink)

Many journals and publishers employ online submission systems to process manuscripts. In some cases, one “template” format exists, but it is then molded slightly to suit the specific needs of each journal, a decision made by the editor-in-chief or editors. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of cases in which OSSs have been abused, mostly by the authorship, either through the creation of fake identities or the use of false e-mail accounts. Although (...) the abusive or fraudulent authors are at fault in such cases, the fact that such cases remained undetected for so long is of concern. Moreover, the current OSSs are imperfect, have security issues and may not be able to detect false information, except through post-submission verification. Sting operations, which involve the submission of false manuscripts with false identities and false affiliations, are no less unethical, and those who abuse the publishing protocol deserve to be as reprimanded as those who abuse OSSs. Finally, I question the ethics of editors or publishers creating OSS accounts on behalf of reviewers prior to obtaining their explicit permission. doi: 10.5294/pebi.2016.20.2.3. (shrink)

Entrevista a Peter Trawny por Soraya Guimarães Hoepfner.

En este artículo abordamos las nociones de libertad, historia y subjetividad, con el fin de aportar una contribución original a los estudios sobre la ideología. Nuestra metodología consistirá en cruzar el psicoanálisis freudiano-lacaniano y la teoría de la interpelación de Louis Althusser. En la introducción, comenzaremos exponiendo dos grandes críticas al psicoanálisis freudiano, una formulada por Jean-Paul Sartre, y la otra por Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari, arrojando así la luz sobre cómo el psicoanálisis podría representar (a pesar de esos (...) argumentos críticos), un campo de libertad en lugar de determinismo, y un dominio que es inherentemente histórico, en lugar de lo contrario. En la primera sección, examinaremos más de cerca las nociones de libertad, memoria e historia, avanzando una hipótesis preliminar según la cual, dentro del espacio simbólico, el pasado permanece abierto a los cambios, lo que hará posible tanto la ideología como la libertad. Además, veremos qué aspectos de la libertad podrían encontrarse dentro de la teoría althusseriana de la interpelación, y cómo el psicoanálisis lacaniano es compatible con ella o puede llevarnos más allá de sus limitaciones. En la segunda sección, veremos cómo puede haber un sujeto que precede a la subjetivación, y cómo la teoría del sujeto de Lacan que surge del resto traumático, sobrepasa el alcance de la teoría de la interpelación. La tercera sección abordará el núcleo pulsional-traumático del sujeto, tal como lo concibe Freud, no sólo como dimensión determinante del psiquismo individual, sino como condición estructural de la cultura. A través de estas consideraciones, mostraremos cómo el psicoanálisis puede proporcionar una explicación de los fundamentos de la ideología, al concebir el núcleo pulsional-traumático de la ley que reside en el Nombre-del-Padre. En la conclusión, veremos, a través de una serie de ejemplos, cómo la ideología aparece disfrazada de verdad, y por qué la comprensión psicoanalítica del inconsciente es necesaria para desenmascarar las ilusiones que produce. (shrink)

En los círculos ortodoxos kantianos suelen disculparse las incoherencias del maestro diciendo que era un "hijo de su tiempo". Ciertamente, en su época aún se excluía en toda Europa a las mujeres de la ciudadanía activa, privándolas de ser sujetos políticos y, con ello, sujetos éticos, de derecho, e incluso, históricos. Pero también es verdad que en ese momento está emergiendo un movimiento en defensa de la igualdad de género (querelle des femmes), en el que lamentablemente Kant no participa. En (...) el presente artículo, tras un preámbulo histórico en el que se confronta al Kant crítico con sus predecesores y coetáneos en lo tocante al tema de la igualdad de las mujeres, se defiende la tesis de que la verdadera moralidad no es pensable sin una idea de universalidad real o, lo que viene a ser lo mismo, de igualdad de género, porque solo a partir de ella es pensable la individualidad y la autonomía. Orthodox Kantian circles tend to excuse the philosopher's inconsistencies by saying that he was a "child of his time". It is true that in his time women throughout Europe were excluded from active citizenship, depriving them of the right to be political and, consequently, ethical and even historical subjects. But it is also true that in that same period a movement was emerging in defense of gender equality (querelle des femmes), in which Kant regrettably did not participate. After a historical introduction that contrasts the critical Kant with his predecessors and contemporaries regarding the issue of women's equality, the article goes on to defend the thesis that true morality is unthinkable without an idea of genuine universality, that is, without gender equality, since only on that basis can individuality and autonomy be thought. Nos círculos ortodoxos kantianos, as incoerências do mestre ao dizer que era um "filho de seu tempo" costumam ser desculpadas. Certamente, em sua época ainda se excluía em toda a Europa as mulheres da cidadania ativa e privava-as de serem sujeitos políticos e, com isso, sujeitos éticos, de direito, e inclusive, históricos. Mas também é verdade que, nesse momento, está emergindo um movimento em defesa da igualdade de gênero (querelle des femmes), do qual lamentavelmente Kant não participa. No presente artigo, após um preâmbulo histórico no qual se confronta o Kant crítico com seus predecessores e coetâneos no que tange ao tema da igualdade das mulheres, defende-se a tese de que a verdadeira moralidade não é pensável sem uma ideia de universidade real ou, o que vem a ser a mesma coisa, de igualdade de gênero, porque só a partir dela é pensável a individualidade e a autonomia. (shrink)

RESUMEN Una vez que el foco de la reflexión pasa de las teorías ideales a la aplicación de la justicia social, centrada en las instituciones de las sociedades democráticas, se requiere prestar especial atención a los estilos de vida. Estos tienen una alta incidencia en cómo la justicia es realizada y afectan tanto a la desigualdad económica como a la disponibilidad de los recursos naturales. En nuestras sociedades es posible establecer restricciones a los estilos de vida, especialmente en aquellos casos (...) en que, por el efecto de algunas dinámicas sociales, aquellos se desacoplan de las concepciones del bien. Se defiende que, en tales casos, la base normativa que permite exigir el respeto a los estilos de vida se disuelve y por ello es posible justificar su restricción. ABSTRACT Now that the focus of reflection has shifted from ideal theories to the application of social justice, centered on the institutions of democratic societies, it is necessary to pay special attention to lifestyles, since they not only influence the realization of justice, but also have an effect on economic inequality and the availability of natural resources. In our societies, it is possible to place restrictions on lifestyles, especially in those cases in which, influenced by certain social dynamics, they disengage from conceptions of the good. The article argues that, in those cases, the normative base grounding the demand that lifestyles be respected is dissolved, thus justifying their restriction. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo muestra la relación estructural entre el testimonio y el juicio estético, y cómo la mentira estructural se implica irreductiblemente como la posibilidad de la verdad. Se explica la necesaria imposibilidad del testimonio como condición de su posibilidad, argumento anticipado por J. L. Borges: “No hay una sola hermosa palabra, con la excepción dudosa de testigo, que no sea una abstracción”. La argumentación se apoya en la teoría husserliana del syncategorema y en los deícticos ; asimismo, se toma (...) de I. Kant el papel de la imaginación y los efectos del “como si”.This essay demonstrates the structural relationship between testimony and aesthetic judgment. The implications of this discovery are several, the most important being the relationship between the lie and truth, implicating that lie indicates the irreducible possibility of truth. The essay explains the necessary impossibility of the testimony as a condition of its possibility, an argument anticipated in Jorge Luis Borges’ beautiful phrase, “There is not a single beautiful word, with the dubious exception of witness, that is not an abstraction”. The argument is based on Husserl’s theory of the syncategorem and on deictic words ; as well, it takes from Kant, the role of the imagination and the effects of the “as if”. (shrink)