In this article, I am concerned with the relationship between the visibility of race as color, the memory of injustice, and American identity. The visibility of color would seem to make it a daily reminder of race and its history, and in this way to be intimately a part of American memory and identity. Yet the tie between memory and color is anything but certain or transparent. Rather, as I shall argue, it is a latticework composed of things remembered, forgotten, (...) glossed, or idealized, and the traces they leave in our world, traces that keep that past from falling into the oblivion of forgetfulness. Finally, color, memory, and identity together belong to the struggle over racial justice in this country, a battle in part to recognize the past, of which color is the visible reminder, and to fashion an American identity that does not seek to render it invisible. Ralph Ellison's writings on memory and race, and particularly his defining work, the "Invisible Man," map these issues and some of the ways of approaching them. The present essay is an exploration of those issues, conducted through an engagement with his work. (shrink)

In this article, I am concerned with the relationship between the visibility of race as color, the memory of injustice, and American identity. The visibility of color would seem to make it a daily reminder of race and its history, and in this way to be intimately a part of American memory and identity. Yet the tie between memory and color is anything but certain or transparent. Rather, as I shall argue, it is a latticework composed of things remembered, forgotten, (...) glossed, or idealized, and the traces they leave in our world, traces that keep that past from falling into the oblivion of forgetfulness. Finally, color, memory, and identity together belong to the struggle over racial justice in this country, a battle in part to recognize the past, of which color is the visible reminder, and to fashion an American identity that does not seek to render it invisible. Ralph Ellison's writings on memory and race, and particularly his defining work, the Invisible Man, map these issues and some of the ways of approaching them. The present essay is an exploration of those issues, conducted through an engagement with his work. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the political community's identity and its sense of its own coherence as a responsible agent across time rest squarely on the work of collective memory. The protean volatility of the politics of memory reminds us that in our world , memory is intertwined with power, interest and resistance precisely because it is so vital and fundamental to what we are as citizens and to what our society is a community of justice.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

What is it to do justice to the absent victims of past injustice, given the distance that separates us from them? Grounded in political theory and guided by the literature on historical justice, W. James Booth restores the dead to their central place at the heart of our understanding of why and how to deal with past injustice. Testimonies and accounts from the race war in the United States, the Holocaust, post-apartheid South Africa, Argentina's Dirty War and the (...) conflict in Northern Ireland help advance and defend Booth's claim that caring for the dead is a central part of addressing past injustice. Memory, Historic Injustice, and Responsibility is an insightful and original book on the relationship of past and present in thinking about what it means to do justice. A valuable addition to the currently available literature on historical justice, the volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and law. (shrink)

While rooted in careful study of Mead’s original writings and transcribed lectures and the historical context in which that work was carried out, the papers in this volume have brought Mead’s work to bear on contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology, cognitive science, and social and political philosophy.

In recent years there has been a major revival of interest in the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Thinkers have looked to Kant's theories about knowledge, history, the moral self and autonomy, and nature and aesthetics to seek the foundations of their own political philosophy. This volume, written by established authorities on Kant as well as by new scholars in the field, illuminates the ways in which contemporary thinkers differ regarding Kantian philosophy and Kant's legacy to political and ethical theory. (...) The book contains essays by Patrick Riley, Lewis White Beck, Mary Gregor, and Richard L. Velkley that place Kant in the tradition of political philosophy; chapters by Dieter Henrich, Susan Shell, Michael W. Doyle, and Joseph M. Knippenberg that examine Kantian perspectives on history and politics; contributions by William A. Galston, Bernard Yack, William James Booth, and Ronald Beiner that judge the Kantian legacy; and classic discussions by John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Hans-Georg Gadamer that present different perspectives on contemporary debates about Kant. (shrink)

Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers a democratic criticism of this view, arguing that the dominating effects of a capitalist economy undermine the ability of liberal democracy to actualise its ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing on Luxemburg’s writings, this article theorises a model of socialist democracy which combines support for public ownership and control of the means of production with a plural multi-party electoral (...) system and a defence of civil liberties. It recovers Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of a socialist democracy as the extension of democratic principles to major social and economic institutions currently governed by nondemocratic authority structures. It defends this version of socialist democracy from the liberal objection that it violates citizens’ property rights and the Marxist objection that it retains the dominating structures of the state and a coercive legal system. (shrink)

Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers a democratic criticism of this view, arguing that the dominating effects of a capitalist economy undermine the ability of liberal democracy to actualise its ideals of freedom and equality. Drawing on Luxemburg’s writings, this article theorises a model of socialist democracy which combines support for public ownership and control of the means of production with a plural multi-party electoral (...) system and a defence of civil liberties. It recovers Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of a socialist democracy as the extension of democratic principles to major social and economic institutions currently governed by nondemocratic authority structures. It defends this version of socialist democracy from the liberal objection that it violates citizens’ property rights and the Marxist objection that it retains the dominating structures of the state and a coercive legal system. (shrink)

That holobionts are units of selection squares poorly with the observation that microbes are often recruited from the environment, not passed down vertically from parent to offspring, as required for collective reproduction. The taxonomic makeup of a holobiont’s microbial community may vary over its lifetime and differ from that of conspecifics. In contrast, biochemical functions of the microbiota and contributions to host biology are more conserved, with taxonomically variable but functionally similar microbes recurring across generations and hosts. To save what (...) is of interest in holobiont thinking, we propose casting metabolic and developmental interaction patterns, rather than the taxa responsible for them, as units of selection. Such units need not directly reproduce or form parent-offspring lineages: their prior existence has created the conditions under which taxa with the genes necessary to carry out their steps have evolved in large numbers. These taxa or genes will reconstruct the original interaction patterns when favorable conditions occur. Interaction patterns will vary in ways that affect the likelihood of and circumstances under which such reconstruction occurs. Thus, they vary in fitness, and evolution by natural selection will occur at this level. It is on the persistence, reconstruction, and spread of such interaction patterns that students of holobiosis should concentrate, we suggest. This model also addresses other multi-species collectively beneficial interactions, such as biofilms or biogeochemical cycles maintaining all life. (shrink)

The generation of asymmetric cell shapes is a recurring theme in biology. In budding yeast, one form of cell asymmetry occurs for division and is generated by anisotropic growth of the mother cell to form a daughter cell bud. Previous genetic studies uncovered key roles for the small GTPase Cdc42 in organizing the actin cytoskeleton and vesicle delivery to the site of bud growth,1,2 but a recent paper has also raised questions about how control of Cdc42 activity is integrated into (...) a proposed hierarchical regulatory pathway that specifies a unique site of bud formation.3 BioEssays 25:833–836, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We hypothesize that aspects of animal multicellularity originated before the divergence of metazoans from fungi and social amoebae. Polarized epithelial tissues are a defining feature of metazoans and contribute to the diversity of animal body plans. The recent finding of a polarized epithelium in the non‐metazoan social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum demonstrates that epithelial tissue is not a unique feature of metazoans, and challenges the traditional paradigm that multicellularity evolved independently in social amoebae and metazoans. An alternative view, presented here, is (...) that the common ancestor of social amoebae, fungi, and animals spent a portion of its life cycle in a multicellular state and possessed molecular machinery necessary for forming an epithelial tissue. Some descendants of this ancestor retained multicellularity, while others reverted to unicellularity. This hypothesis makes testable predictions regarding tissue organization in close relatives of metazoans and provides a novel conceptual framework for studies of early animal evolution.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Searching for Eve: Basal metazoans and the evolution of multicellular complexity Abstract. (shrink)

Integrins are ubiquitous trans‐membrane adhesion molecules that mediate the interaction of cells with the extracellular matrix (ECM). Integrins link cells to the ECM by interacting with the cell cytoskeleton. In cases such as leukocyte binding, integrins mediate cell‐cell interactions and cell‐ECM interactions. Recent research indicates that integrins also function as signal transduction receptors, triggering a number of intracellular signaling pathways that regulate cell behavior and development. A number of integrins are known to stimulate changes in intracellular calcium levels, resulting in (...) integrin activation. Although changes in intracellular calcium regulate a vast number of cellular functions, this review will discuss the stimulation of calcium signaling by integrins and the role of intracellular calcium in the regulation of integrin‐mediated adhesion. (shrink)

Beta‐catenin is a multifunctional protein with critical roles in cell‐cell adhesion, Wnt‐signaling and the centrosome cycle. Whereas the roles of β‐catenin in cell‐cell adhesion and Wnt‐signaling have been studied extensively, the mechanism(s) involving β‐catenin in centrosome functions are poorly understood. β‐Catenin localizes to centrosomes and promotes mitotic progression. NIMA‐related protein kinase 2 (Nek2), which stimulates centrosome separation, binds to and phosphorylates β‐catenin. β‐Catenin interacting proteins involved in Wnt signaling such as adenomatous polyposis coli, Axin, and GSK3β, are also localized at (...) centrosomes and play roles in promoting mitotic progression. Additionally, proteins associated with cell‐cell adhesion sites, such as dynein, regulate mitotic spindle positioning. These roles of proteins at the cell cortex and Wnt signaling that involve β‐catenin indicate a cross‐talk between different sub‐cellular sites in the cell at mitosis, and that different pools of β‐catenin may co‐ordinate centrosome functions and cell cycle progression. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: PART I: OVERVIEW OF KEY INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY DEBATES * PART II: THE ROLE OF POLICY IN SOCIAL JUSTICE DEBATES * PART III: POLICY DEBATES IN INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION * PART IV: EDUCATION POLICY DEBATES WITH LASTING CONSEQUENCES.

In this companion volume to The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire offers his refined definition of a worldview and addresses key questions about the history of worldview thinking, the existential and intellectual formation of worldviews, the public and private dimensions of worldviews and how worldview thinking can help us navigate an increasingly pluralistic universe.

For more than forty years, The Universe Next Door has set the standard for an introduction to worldviews. This sixth edition uses James Sire's widely influential model of eight basic worldview questions to examine prominent worldviews that have shaped the Western world, critiquing each worldview within its own frame of reference and in comparison to others.

Somatic or inherited mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene are a frequent cause of colorectal cancer in humans. APC protein has an important tumor suppression function to reduce cellular levels of the signaling protein β‐catenin and, thereby, inhibit β‐catenin and T‐cell‐factor‐mediated gene expression. In addition, APC protein binds to microtubules in vertebrate cells and localizes to actin‐rich adherens junctions in epithelial cells of the fruit fly Drosophila (Fig. 1). Very little is known, however, about the function of these (...) cytoskeletal associations. Recently, Hamada and Bienz have described a potential role for Drosophila E‐APC in cellular adhesion,1 which offers new clues to APC function in embryonic development, and potentially colorectal adenoma formation and tumor progression in humans. BioEssays 24:771–774, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is commonly asserted that “death is not a welfare issue” and this has been reflected in welfare legislation and policy in many countries. However, this creates a conflict for many who consider animal welfare to be an appropriate basis for decision-making in animal ethics but also consider that an animal’s death is ethically significant. To reconcile these viewpoints, this paper attempts to formulate an account of death as a welfare issue. Welfare issues are issues that refer to evaluations concerning (...) an animal’s interests. This includes evaluations that refer only to comparisons between the presence and absence of states, including positive states. This means that an animal’s death may be a welfare issue insofar as it leads to the exclusion of relevant positive states. This allows us to deny that death is necessarily not a welfare issue. (shrink)

The Farm Animal Welfare Council’s concept of a Good Life gives an idea of an animal’s quality of life that is over and above that of a mere life worth living. The concept needs explanation and clarification, in order to be meaningful, particularly for consumers who purchase farm animal produce. The concept could allow assurance schemes to apply the label to assessments of both the potential of each method of production, conceptualised in ways expected to enhance consumers’ engagement such as (...) ‘naturalness’ and ‘freedom’; and the concept of a life worth living as a safeguard threshold below which no animal’s actual welfare should fall, based on each animal’s overall affective states. This may provide a framework for development of the Good Life concept, within scientific and sociological fields, in order to allow reliable and influential use by assessors, consumers and retailers. (shrink)

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified.

Animals are usually considered to lack the status of autonomous agents. Nevertheless, they do appear to make ostensible choices. This article considers whether, and how, I should respect animals' choices. I propose a concept of volitionality which can be respected if, and insofar as, doing so is in the best interests of the animal. Applying that concept, I will argue that an animals' choices be respected when the relevant human decision maker's capacities to decide are potentially challenged or compromised. For (...) example, it will be best to respect the animals' choice when the human decision maker: lacks accurate knowledge of the animal's subjective experiences; does not know what will lead to desirable experiences or allow for the avoidance of undesirable ones; is biased; is less aware of the animal's specific situation; cannot appreciate all elements comprehensively, including considering any value to the animal being allowed to make and implement a choice, such as where a lack of control or liberty would be unpleasant or where an animal would usefully learn from the process of choice-making; and when the animal's choice is achievable. This additionally suggests that we may often beneficially choose to set up situations that empower animals to make better choices. (shrink)

Eukaryogenesis is widely viewed as an improbable evolutionary transition uniquely affecting the evolution of life on this planet. However, scientific and popular rhetoric extolling this event as a singularity lacks rigorous evidential and statistical support. Here, we question several of the usual claims about the specialness of eukaryogenesis, focusing on both eukaryogenesis as a process and its outcome, the eukaryotic cell. We argue in favor of four ideas. First, the criteria by which we judge eukaryogenesis to have required a genuinely (...) unlikely series of events 2 billion years in the making are being eroded by discoveries that fill in the gaps of the prokaryote:eukaryote “discontinuity.” Second, eukaryogenesis confronts evolutionary theory in ways not different from other evolutionary transitions in individuality; parallel systems can be found at several hierarchical levels. Third, identifying which of several complex cellular features confer on eukaryotes a putative richer evolutionary potential remains an area of speculation: various keys to success have been proposed and rejected over the five-decade history of research in this area. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it is difficult and may be impossible to eliminate eukaryocentric bias from the measures by which eukaryotes as a whole are judged to have achieved greater success than prokaryotes as a whole. Overall, we question whether premises of existing theories about the uniqueness of eukaryogenesis and the greater evolutionary potential of eukaryotes have been objectively formulated and whether, despite widespread acceptance that eukaryogenesis was “special,” any such notion has more than rhetorical value. (shrink)

Designed for use by philosophy students, this book provides an accessible, yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort has been made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams in place of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dictio distinction. Discussion of philosophical issues concerning (...) the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems and also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This feature provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness, one that is easy to extend to systems that include quantifiers. (shrink)

Designed for use by philosophy students, this 2006 book provides an accessible, yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort has been made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams in place of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dictio distinction. Discussion of philosophical issues (...) concerning the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems and also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This feature provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness, one that is easy to extend to systems that include quantifiers. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION A story has been passed down to us from some two millennia ago of a conversation between a wealthy Athenian estate owner, ...

I address the question: “What is fixed on the boundary in the action principles of general relativity?” Four forms of the action are considered: the Einstein action, the Hilbert action, the first order action, and what may be called the cosmological action. The relationships and boundary data of these actions are described geometrically. Formal passage to the “Euclidean” forms of these actions is effected in detail.

What do the rules of logic say about the meanings of the symbols they govern? In this book, James W. Garson examines the inferential behaviour of logical connectives, whose behaviour is defined by strict rules, and proves definitive results concerning exactly what those rules express about connective truth conditions. He explores the ways in which, depending on circumstances, a system of rules may provide no interpretation of a connective at all, or the interpretation we ordinarily expect for it, or (...) an unfamiliar or novel interpretation. He also shows how the novel interpretations thus generated may be used to help analyse philosophical problems such as vagueness and the open future. His book will be valuable for graduates and specialists in logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

The concept of hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields but has also attracted serious criticism. The authors trace the origin of the concept in a convergence of ideas in the early 1980s and map the ways it was applied when research on men and masculinities expanded. Evaluating the principal criticisms, the authors defend the underlying concept of masculinity, which in most research use is neither reified nor essentialist. However, the criticism of trait models of gender and (...) rigid typologies is sound. The treatment of the subject in research on hegemonic masculinity can be improved with the aid of recent psychological models, although limits to discursive flexibility must be recognized. The concept of hegemonic masculinity does not equate to a model of social reproduction; we need to recognize social struggles in which subordinated masculinities influence dominant forms. Finally, the authors review what has been confirmed from early formulations and what needs to be discarded. The authors suggest reformulation of the concept in four areas: a more complex model of gender hierarchy, emphasizing the agency of women; explicit recognition of the geography of masculinities, emphasizing the interplay among local, regional, and global levels; a more specific treatment of embodiment in contexts of privilege and power; and a stronger emphasis on the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity, recognizing internal contradictions and the possibilities of movement toward gender democracy. (shrink)

It is nearly 10 years since Patrick Haggard and colleagues first reported the ‘intentional binding’ effect . The intentional binding effect refers to the subjective compression of the temporal interval between a voluntary action and its external sensory consequence. Since the first report, considerable interest has been generated and a fascinating array of studies has accumulated. Much of the interest in intentional binding comes from the promise to shed light on human agency. In this review we survey studies on intentional (...) binding, focusing, in particular, on the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency . We suggest that, whilst it is yet to be fully explicated, the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency is compelling. We conclude by considering outstanding questions and future directions for research on intentional binding. (shrink)

This book on modal logic is especially designed for philosophy students. It provides an accessible yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort is made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams instead of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dicto distinction. Discussion of philosophical (...) issues concerning the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems, which are widely regarded as the easiest to teach and use. It also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness that is easy to extend to quantifiers. This second edition contains a new chapter on logics of conditionals, an updated and expanded bibliography, and is updated throughout. (shrink)

A Critical Response to William James Booth's article in Economics of Time.