In this article, I focus on two moments of Nathaniel Kleitman's career, specifically that of his Mammoth Cave experiment in the 1930s and his consultation with the United States military in the 1940s–1950s. My interests in bringing these two moments of Kleitman's career together are to examine the role of nature and the social in his understanding of human sleep and the legacies these have engendered for sleep science and medicine in the present; more specifically, I am interested in Kleitman's (...) disallowance of napping in his scientific protocols, which may seem incidental until one apprehends the lack of napping as therapeutic treatment in modern sleep medicine. By forwarding a conception of historiography building on Raymond Williams’ “structures of feeling” and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's philosophy of immanence, I show how the work of William Dement in the 1970s to found a medicine of sleep and the eclipse of biphasic sleeping patterns as a biological and social possibility is indebted to Kleitman's scientific work. The modification of sleep is also the modification of society itself; and, as Kleitman argued, the harnessing of nature can lead to the finer entrenchments of human nature and society. (shrink)

Recent approaches in the medical and social sciences have begun to lay stress on “plasticity” as a key feature of human physiological experiences. Plasticity helps to account for significant differences within and between populations, particularly in relation to variations in basic physiological processes, such as brain development, and, in the context of this article, daily sleep needs. This article proposes a novel basis for the redevelopment of institutions in accordance with growing awareness of human variation in physiological needs, and articulates (...) a theory of multibiologism. This approach seeks to expand the range of “normal” physiological experiences to respond to human plasticity, but also to move beyond critiques of medical practice that see medicine as simply responding to capitalist demands through the medicalization of “natural” processes. Instead, by focusing on how the institutions of U.S. everyday life—work, family, and school—structure the lives of individuals and produce certain forms of sleep as pathological, this article proposes that minor alterations in institutions could result in less pathologization for individuals and communities. Multibiologism provides a foundation for shared priorities in the social sciences, in bioethics, and in medical practice, and may lay the groundwork for emergent collaborations in institutional reform. (shrink)

This article focuses on the recent production of sleep as a matter of concern in American society. In it, I draw primarily on fieldwork with sleep researchers and clinicians to understand the means by which ideas about sleep are produced and disseminated, and discuss the rise of sleep medicine since the late 1970s and the ways sleep disabilities have been constructed and mobilized in contemporary allopathic research and practice. The article provides a description of modern sleep medicine practices, and analyses (...) clinical encounters between researchers, clinicians and patients, particularly the ways patient cases are produced and interpreted. I follow these ethnographic observations with textual analysis of the National Sleep Foundation's campaigns to promote sleep awareness, and offer the theoretical concepts of medical abstraction and insistence as a means to understand the production of sleep as a matter of concern, and how it might be made to adhere in particular patients' lives and the practices of clinicians. (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)

Recent Anglophone scholarship has successfully shown that Nietzsche's thought makes important contributions to a wide range of contemporary philosophical debates. In so doing, however, scholarship has lost sight of another important feature of Nietzsche's project, namely his desire to challenge the very conception of philosophy that has been used to assess his merits as a philosopher. In other words, contemporary scholarship has overlooked Nietzsche's contributions to metaphilosophy, i.e. debates around the nature, methods, and aims of philosophy. This important new collection (...) of essays brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to explore and discuss these contributions and debates. It will appeal to anyone interested in metaphilosophy, Nietzsche studies, German studies, or intellectual history. (shrink)

This article argues that Nietzsche's 1888 writings should be understood as a Dionysian comedy that parallels important formal structures of Aristophanes' early plays. Whereas works such as The Twilight of the Idols and The Case of Wagner contain features that resemble the agonal elements of Dionysian comedy, Ecce Homo should be understood as a comic parabasis of self-definition.

Between 1878 and 1882, Nietzsche published what he called 'the free spirit works': Human, All Too Human; Assorted Opinions and Maxims; The Wanderer and His Shadow; Daybreak; and The Gay Science. Often approached as a mere assemblage of loosely connected aphorisms, these works are here reinterpreted as a coherent narrative of the steps Nietzsche takes in educating himself toward freedom that that executes a dialectic between scientific truth-seeking and artistic life-affirmation. Matthew Meyer's new reading of these works not (...) only provides a more convincing explanation of their content but also makes better sense of the relationship between them and Nietzsche's larger oeuvre. His argument shows how these texts can and should be read as a unified project even while they present multiple, in some cases conflicting, images of the free spirit. The book will appeal to anyone who is interested in Nietzsche's philosophy and especially to those puzzled about how to understand the peculiarities of the free spirit works. (shrink)

In this book, Matthew P. Meyer analyzes the archer and the bow as a metaphor for the human condition in Lacan, Nietzsche, and Greek literature. The bow is a model of the tension at the heart of the human condition, while the archer is a symbol of control.

Instances of nudity in Westworld can be put into three categories: Nudity as a beautiful art form, nudity as a sign of (male) dominance, and nudity as a sign of humanity or more to the point, nudity as a sign of becoming human. All the hosts presented as nudes in Westworld are idealized. The hosts are always more idealized in their form than either the human guests or the human directors of the park. Kenneth Clark makes a key distinction between (...) being naked, “being without clothes”, and the nude as a form of art. He imagines that the idealized beauty of the nude is analogous to the architecture of a building: It is a “balance between an ideal scheme and functional necessities”. The idealization of the human body and the createdness of the hosts come together in the main human theme of both the park's creators and its visitors: Control. (shrink)

This is an important volume on a topic that has gained increasing traction in recent Nietzsche scholarship. In it, fourteen authors—trained philosophers and Germanists—discuss the related themes of contest, conflict, war, and the Greek agon in Nietzsche's works. Although the quality of the contributions varies, there are enough substantive essays in the volume to ensure that it will be essential reading for subsequent studies on the subject.In the introduction, the editors claim that although Nietzsche's reflections on fundamental ontology are distinct (...) from his interest in cultural institutions such as the Greek agon, they nevertheless provide important "background assumptions" for thinking about cultural... (shrink)

In The Good Place, Chidi Anogonye has difficulty making decisions. In fact, that may be his defining characteristic, and it is the one that ultimately led to his demise on Earth. The belief in “fundamental truths” entails a belief in “objective values,” that is, values that exist outside of the frame of human thinking. Simone de Beauvoir calls such a belief “the spirit of seriousness”. Beauvoir also makes a distinction between absurdity—that which has no meaning—and ambiguity—that which has no fixed (...) meaning. Chidi follows one of Beauvoir's favorite principles of existentialism: “Do what one must, come what may”. In order to understand both Chidi's and Beauvoir's meaning of “must” we have to move away from an understanding of right and wrong as existing in the world, independent of human thought and assessment. (shrink)

Beneath the stylized violence and thrilling car crashes, the Mad Max films consider universal questions about the nature of human life, order and anarchy, justice and moral responsibility, society and technology, and ultimately, human redemption. In Mad Max and Philosophy, a diverse team of political scientists, historians, and philosophers investigates the underlying themes of the blockbuster movie franchise, following Max as he attempts to rebuild himself and the world. -/- This book guides you through the barren wastelands of a post-apocalyptic (...) future as you explore ethics and politics in The Wasteland, the importance of costumes and music, humankind's relationship with nature, commerce, gender, religion, madness, and more. (shrink)

For many years, Anglo-American scholars paid scant attention to Nietzsche’s published works as integral wholes. Explicitly or implicitly, scholars agreed with Arthur Danto that Nietzsche’s texts had little order and coherence and so the interpreter’s task was to systematize Nietzsche’s philosophy for him by assembling ideas found throughout his corpus.1 Recently, however, there has been a significant increase in scholarship focused on Nietzsche’s published works. Not only have a number of readings of On the Genealogy of Morals been produced in (...) the past decade,2 scholars have recently published works devoted exclusively to texts such as The Birth of Tragedy,3 Human, All Too Human,4 and The Gay Science.5 Christa .. (shrink)

This essay seeks to overcome the divide that has emerged in recent scholarship between Alexander Nehamas’s reading of Nietzsche as an aestheticist who eschews the dogmatism implicit in the scientific project and Brian Leiter's reading of Nietzsche as a hard-nosed naturalist whose project is continuous with the natural sciences. It is argued that Nietzsche turns to the natural sciences to justify a relationalist ontology that not only eliminates metaphysical concepts such as ‘being’ and ‘things-in-themselves’, but also can be linked to (...) key components of the aestheticist reading. As a result, Nietzsche's naturalism should not be understood as opposing important features of his aestheticism. Instead, Nietzsche's project should be understood in terms of a naturalized aestheticism that rejects the metaphysical-moral interpretation of existence espoused by philosophers such as Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer. (shrink)

In recent years, a divide has emerged in Anglo-American scholarship between Alexander Nehamas’ reading of Nietzsche as an aestheticist who eschews the dogmatism implicit in the scientific project and Brian Leiter’s reading of Nietzsche as a hardnosed naturalist whose project is continuous with work in the natural sciences. In this paper, I argue that this divide is a false one. This is because Nietzsche thinks that a certain worldview, which he associates with the philosophy of Heraclitus, is conducive to the (...) flourishing of art, and rather than avoiding the dangers of dogmatism in presenting this view, he turns to the natural sciences to show why everyone should accept it. As a result, the crucial divide in Nietzsche’s thinking is not between naturalism and aestheticism and so science and art, but between the naturalism and aestheticism that flourished during what Nietzsche calls the tragic age of the Greeks and the metaphysics and morality characteristic of the Platonic-Christian tradition. (shrink)

Michael Ure’s introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science is a welcome contribution to the secondary literature. He provides a clear and coherent account of this complex text and situates his interpretation within Nietzsche’s larger oeuvre and philosophical project. Ure advances an original thesis—GS is Nietzsche’s attempt to revive an ancient understanding of philosophy as a way of life—that will be of interest to scholars more generally, and yet he still succeeds in introducing the text to the novice reader. Although (...) I identify some points of disagreement below, Ure has nevertheless written the best introduction to GS currently available in the English language.The structure of Ure’s text largely... (shrink)

Westworld is a television series on HBO (2016–present), based on a movie of the same name by Michael Crichton. The plot of the show is wide-reaching. The first season shows us an adult theme park where android “hosts” serve the wealthy “guests.” Seasons two and three show the attempt of the hosts to escape this servitude, and then, in a twist, help humans do the same outside of the parks. This chapter links all three seasons of Westworld to theories of (...) colonization. First, it explores the types of colonialism as they pertain to Westworld. Then it looks at the various scopes of colonization in Westworld – the colonization of space, time, and psychic space. Next, it explores the psychology of colonizers and the colonized as it pertains to the show. Lastly, it explores possible forms of liberation from colonization that the show has to offer. (shrink)

Objectives: To examine associations of changing employment conditions, specifically switching to working from home or job loss, with mental health, using data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: Data from 2,301 US adults in employment prior to COVID-19 were collected April 3rd−7th, 2020. Participants reported whether their employment remained unchanged, they were WFH when they had not been before, or they had lost their job due to the pandemic. Outcomes were symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and positive mental health assessed (...) using validated questionnaires. Linear regression quantified associations of employment changes with mental health outcomes, controlling for age, sex, race, BMI, smoking status, screen time, physical activity, marital status, chronic conditions, and current COVID-19 containment strategies being followed.Results: Compared to participants whose employment remained unchanged, those who switched to WFH did not differ in any measures of mental health. Participants who had lost their job reported higher symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, and lower PMH. Loneliness did not differ between groups.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that concerns around potential adverse mental health effects, particularly increases in loneliness, should not preclude WFH in the general population, while considering each individual's personal circumstances, and the acute adverse association of job loss with mental health. Tailored and sensitive interventions may be required to prevent deteriorations in mental health associated with job loss during periods of societal stress. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

In “Deception and the Clinical Ethicist,” Christopher Meyers argues that clinical ethicists sometimes ought to actively help deceive patients or their families, all...

We consider the class of pointed varieties of algebras having a lattice term reduct and we show that each such variety gives rise in a natural way, and according to a regular pattern, to at least three interesting logics. Although the mentioned class includes several logically and algebraically significant examples (e.g. Boolean algebras, MV algebras, Boolean algebras with operators, residuated lattices and their subvarieties, algebras from quantum logic or from depth relevant logic), we consider here in greater detail Abelian ℓ-groups, (...) where such logics respectively correspond to: i) Meyer and Slaney’s Abelian logic [31]; ii) Galli et al.’s logic of equilibrium [21]; iii) a new logic of “preservation of truth degrees”. (shrink)

Professor Matthew Adler has argued that many constitutional rights are not personal moral rights, but that are pragmatic and instrumental in nature. 1 The reason rights are not personal, in Adlerthe constitutionality of a statute depends not just on how it affects someone, but on what it sayspersonal” legal disability that would set him apart from any other citizen, and is, therefore, not enforcing a personal right. Instead, Adler believes that constitutional rights are better understood as positive-law creations that (...) allow citizens to sue as private attorneys-general. (shrink)

For some years, Matthew Meyer has labored at a comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche’s oeuvre that understands his philosophical and literary output as a revival of a particularly Greek mode of thought. This volume represents the culmination of much, but not all, of this previous work, and it serves also as a promise of future work in the same vein. The title, Reading Nietzsche Through the Ancients, is therefore a trifle misleading: Meyer is not reading all of Nietzsche (...) through all the ancients, but only some of Nietzsche through some of them. That is all for the good, so far as I am concerned, since I am usually suspicious of ambitions to resolve Nietzsche’s debt to antiquity in a single... (shrink)