After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

One question in moral psychology concerns the role of emotions to motivate moral action. This question has recently become more urgent, because it is now clearer that cognitive developmental theories cannot offer a complete explanation of moral functioning. This paper suggests that emotion, as is typically understood in psychology, cannot be seen as the basis for an acceptable explanation of moral behaviour and motivation. However, it is argued that it is possible to understand emotions as embedded in agentic processes, and (...) regulated by conscious concerns. So understood, emotions acquire an important role in the person's moral life. These conclusions are reached through an extensive review of psychological and philosophical conceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the role of voices as cues to adults of children’s needs for potential caregiving during early childhood. To this purpose, 74 college students listened to pairs of 5-year-old versus 10-year-old children verbalizing neutral-content sentences and indicated which voice was better associated with each of 14 traits, potentially meaningful in interactions between young children and adults. Results indicated that children with immature voices were perceived more positively and as being more helpless than children (...) with mature voices. Children’s voices, regardless of the content of speech, seem to be a powerful source of information about children’s need for caregiving for parents and others during the first six years of life. (shrink)

Does God have any relevant role in the new natural law theory of Germain Grisez and John Finnis? Finnis declared in Natural Law and Natural Rights that he wanted to offer “a theory of natural law without needing to advert to the question of God’s existence or nature or will.” Grisez claims that “man’s ultimate beatitudo cannot consist in the vision of God.” Indeed, there is no consistent role for God in their philosophical theory. In this article, the author shows (...) that their mistakes about God depend first on their metaphysical way of looking at nature, which is closer to thinkers like Hume and Kant than to Aristotle and Aquinas; and second on some strong misunderstandings in moral philosophy about the concept of ultimate end. He shows the unfortunate theological outcome their flawed metaphysics and morality have already produced. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 35–45. (shrink)

Urokinase and its receptor are essential components of the cell migration machinery, providing an inducible, transient and localized cell surface proteolytic activity. This activity has been shown to be required in normal and pathological forms of cellular invasiveness (i.e. in several embryonic developmental processes, during inflammatory responses and cancer metastasis and spreading). It represents one of the best known of the protcolytic systems which are currently under investigation in this field. The urokinase receptor allows a continuous regulation of the proteolytic (...) activity at cell contacts, utilizing the different localization of urokinase and its inhibitors. The receptor, in fact, in addition to focusing the enzymatic activity at focal and cell‐cell contacts, also regulates it by internalizing and degrading only the inhibited form of urokinase. Internalized receptor releases the ligands to the lysosomes and recycles back to surface. In this way, the proteolytically active areas of the cell surface can be continuously monitored for their activity and their location modified. The cell can thus coordinate its migration efforts with a step‐wise modification of the proteolytic activity‐map of the cell surface. The urokinase cycle can be supported by one individual cell (autocrine) or by two or more cells. In the latter case, complementation and synergism of urokinase and its receptor are found. (shrink)

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an exchange (...) that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

Nietzsche, para Heidegger, não teria levado a termo a desvalorização dos valores considerados até então válidos. A transvalorização, ao invés de garantir a renovação da condição existencial do homem, antepõe, à tematização do ser, o nada mudado em vontade e representação. O querido, contra os pressupostos da vontade de poder, se esclerosa na tangibilidade das coisas sem a possibilidade do além por meio do qual Nietzsche pensava superar o niilismo. A transvaloração conserva em tal aspecto a lógica dos velhos valores (...) por conta de uma vontade fixada na presumida concretude da enticidade. Nietzsche é o paradigma de uma metafísica que pensa o ser dentro da não verdade ou de uma verdade transformada na relação sujeitoobjeto. Por tudo isso, a transvaloração, longe de fundar uma nova posição de valores, é adscrivível à nadificação do sujeito, constantemente correlacionado ao objeto. O super-homem não é senão uma super-objetividade que se ilude de reviver na mais completa plenitude, com base no platonismo invertido. Contra Nietzsche, os niilismos se assemelham por não poderem não pensar o ser ao modo de um ser-aí: uma paranoica divinização da corporeidade dentro da realidade mundana. Palavras-chave: Nietzsche. Heidegger. Kant. Transvaloração. Metafísica. Niilismo. (shrink)

We report the latest structural information on PREP1 tumor suppressor, the specific “oncogene” and “tumor suppressive” signatures of MEIS1 and PREP1, the molecular rules regulating PREP1 and MEIS1 binding to DNA, and how these can change depending on the interaction with PBX1, cell‐type, neoplastic transformation, and intracellular concentration. As both PREP1 and MEIS1 interact with PBX1 they functionally compete with each other. PREP1, PBX1, and MEIS1 TALE‐class homeodomain transcription factors act in an interdependent and integrated way in experimental tumorigenesis. We (...) also pool together the plethora of data available in human cancer databanks and connect them with the available molecular information. The emerging picture suggests that a similarly basic approach might be used to better dissect and define other oncogenes and suppressors and better understand human cancer. (shrink)

As a theoretical extension of other previous studies, this work represents an improvement of the notions about the relationship between adolescence and Mafia. The research has been aiming at exploring teenagers’ universe within specific social contexts where the presence of criminal organizations is significant, focusing the attention on the modalities through which evolutionary tasks are coped with in contexts with high Mafia density and often characterized by a perception of social space that makes personal, financial, and political development problematic. The (...) research has involved 93 teenagers who live in southern regions where the presence of Mafia organizations is significant. Six focus groups have been carried out, recorded, and transcribed. Verbalizations were analyzed through appropriate qualitative templates, which allowed detecting of three thematic macro-areas: representations of Mafia, emotions connected to it, and planning skills. The qualitative analy.. (shrink)

This work takes up the problem of moral conflict, wherein a person must choose between two or more evils. The problem lies behind such issues as the defensive war, therapeutic abortion, and contraception. It becomes a religious question because, as the author argues, religion elicits the same kind of openness to values as is needed for addressing moral dilemmas. After culling insights out of the history of Christian ethics, Blasi presents phenomenologies of both moral decision making and religion, and (...) uses the results to address the variety of moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Georg Simmel developed a "form" method for the newly revived field of sociology, drawing on the subjectivity/objectivity dialectic. While his book's organization differs from that of contemporary texts, his method remains implicit in the field to this day.

_Sociologies of Religion: National Traditions_ presents fourteen histories of the sociological study of religion in a diverse set of nations. The authors narrate the stories behind major personages, theoretical traditions, seminal works, research institutes, and professional associations.

"This is an absolutely dazzling book on Orwell, casting a brilliant new light, not just on Orwell himself, but on the entire intellectual history of our time. It is a 'must read', not just for devotees of Orwell, but for anyone concerned with discussions of socialism and capitalism, totalitarianism and democracy, ideological passion and intellectual honesty. It will prove a superb teaching aid at both undergraduate and graduate levels."--Yuri Maltsev, co-author of The Tea Party Explained and editor of Requiem for (...) Marx "There has always been some mystery about how Orwell could give us the nightmare world of Ingsoc (English Socialism) while himself remaining an unrepentant English Socialist. This and other puzzles about Orwell are convincingly solved in Dr. Steele's masterly account. If you want to know what made Orwell tick, you just have to read this eloquent, provocative, and hugely entertaining book."--Barry Smith, Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and author of Austrian Philosophy. (shrink)

The neoclassical critique of conventional natural law theory -- The presupposition of lex naturalis : man as capax dei -- "Lex" and "Lex Naturalis.".

Weit mehr, als bisher angenommen, ist Derridas vor genau vierzig Jahren erschienene Grammatologie von religiös inspirierten Impulsen motiviert und von diesen her verständlich. Sie stellt nämlich eine Reaktion auf mediale Entwicklungen dar, die gerade in der Abfassungszeit und gerade in den Augen der „aus dem Buch hervorgegangenen Rasse” der Juden existenzbedrohlich erscheinen konnten. Diese Bedrohung wurde von Derrida mit dem Abendland assoziiert und mit einer Vorwärtsverteidigung beantwortet. Ziel seiner Grammatologie war eine medienphilosophisch reformulierte Metaphysikkritik und ein Angriff auf ein Abendland, (...) von dem die jüdische Tradition ausgenommen bleiben, ja aus dem sie gestärkt hervorgehen sollte. Die Konsequenzen seines Buches reichen bis in die Gegenwart und werfen viel Licht auf heutige postsäkulare Spannungen. (shrink)