DREAM complexes are transcriptional regulators that control the expression of hundreds to thousands of target genes involved in the cell cycle, quiescence, differentiation, and apoptosis. These complexes contain many subunits that can vary according to the considered target genes. Depending on their composition and the nature of the partners they recruit, DREAM complexes control gene expression through diverse mechanisms, including chromatin remodeling, transcription cofactor and factor recruitment at various genomic binding sites. This complexity is particularly high in mammals. (...) Since the discovery of the first dREAM complex (drosophila Rb, E2F, and Myb) in Drosophila melanogaster, model organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans, and plants allowed a deeper understanding of the processes regulated by DREAM‐like complexes. Here, we review the conservation of these complexes. We discuss the contribution of model organisms to the study of DREAM‐mediated transcriptional regulatory mechanisms and their relevance in characterizing novel activities of DREAM complexes. (shrink)

The main concepts of the free energy (FE) neuroscience developed by Karl Friston and colleagues parallel those of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. In Hobson et al. ( 2014 ) these include an innate virtual reality generator that produces the fictive prior beliefs that Freud described as the primary process. This enables Friston's account to encompass a unified treatment—a complexity theory—of the role of virtual reality in both dreaming and mental disorder. In both accounts the brain operates to minimize (...) FE aroused by sensory impingements—including interoceptive impingements that report compliance with biological imperatives—and constructs a representation/model of the causes of impingement that enables this minimization. In Friston's account (variational) FE equals complexity minus accuracy, and is minimized by increasing accuracy and decreasing complexity. Roughly the brain (or model) increases accuracy together with complexity in waking. This is mediated by consciousness-creating active inference—by which it explains sensory impingements in terms of perceptual experiences of their causes. In sleep it reduces complexity by processes that include both synaptic pruning and consciousness/virtual reality/dreaming in REM. The consciousness-creating active inference that effects complexity-reduction in REM dreaming must operate on FE-arousing data distinct from sensory impingement. The most relevant source is remembered arousals of emotion, both recent and remote, as processed in SWS and REM on “active systems” accounts of memory consolidation/reconsolidation. Freud describes these remembered arousals as condensed in the dreamwork for use in the conscious contents of dreams, and similar condensation can be seen in symptoms. Complexity partly reflects emotional conflict and trauma. This indicates that dreams and symptoms are both produced to reduce complexity in the form of potentially adverse (traumatic or conflicting) arousals of amygdala-related emotions. Mental disorder is thus caused by computational complexity together with mechanisms like synaptic pruning that have evolved for complexity-reduction; and important features of disorder can be understood in these terms. Details of the consilience among Freudian, systems consolidation, and complexity-reduction accounts appear clearly in the analysis of a single fragment of a dream, indicating also how complexity reduction proceeds by a process resembling Bayesian model selection. (shrink)

Waking hallucinations suggest mechanisms of dream initiation and maintenance. Visual association cortex activation, yielding poorly attended-to, visually ambiguous dream environments, suggests conditions favoring hallucinosis. Attentional and visual systems, coactivated during sleep, may generate imagery that is inserted into virtual environments. Internally consistent dreaming may evolve from successive, contextually evoked images. Fluctuating arousal and context-evoked imagery may help explain dream features.

Dreams of chase or pursuit, falling, sex, flying, nudity, failing an examination, one's own and other's death, fire, teeth falling out and some other themes experienced, even if only rarely, by many people all over the world have been labelled 'typical dreams'. This essay argues that typical dreaming, rather a syndrome of themes than monothematic, reflects an extraordinary state of mind and brain. Odd and particularly memorable perceptions, as well as emerging awareness of sleep and dreaming -- i.e. parallels to (...) lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, complex partial seizure, epileptic and migraine auras, and aspects of dreaming after trauma -- can be traced with some plausibility in all prominent variants of typical dreaming. When viewed from this perspective, for example, dream pursuers are much more a shadow of the bodily self than a metaphor for the psycho- biographical situation or evolutionarily implemented sparring partners who make dreamers fit for the struggle for survival during waking hours. (shrink)

This paper compares the free energy neuroscience now advocated by Karl Friston and his colleagues with that hypothesised by Freud, arguing that Freud's notions of conflict and trauma can be understood in terms of computational complexity. It relates Hobson and Friston's work on dreaming and the reduction of complexity to contemporary accounts of dreaming and the consolidation of memory, and advances the hypothesis that mental disorder can be understood in terms of computational complexity and the mechanisms, including synaptic pruning, that (...) have evolved to reduce it. (shrink)

The paradigmatic assumption that REM sleep is the physiological equivalent of dreaming is in need of fundamental revision. A mounting body of evidence suggests that dreaming and REM sleep are dissociable states, and that dreaming is controlled by forebrain mechanisms. Recent neuropsychological, radiological, and pharmacological findings suggest that the cholinergic brain stem mechanisms that control the REM state can only generate the psychological phenomena of dreaming through the mediation of a second, probably dopaminergic, forebrain mechanism. The latter mechanism (and thus (...) dreaming itself) can also be activated by a variety of nonREM triggers. Dreaming can be manipulated by dopamine agonists and antagonists with no concomitant change in REM frequency, duration, and density. Dreaming can also be induced by focal forebrain stimulation and by complex partial (forebrain) seizures during nonREM sleep, when the involvement of brainstem REM mechanisms is precluded. Likewise, dreaming is obliterated by focal lesions along a specific (probably dopaminergic) forebrain pathway, and these lesions do not have any appreciable effects on REM frequency, duration, and density. These findings suggest that the forebrain mechanism in question is the final common path to dreaming and that the brainstem oscillator that controls the REM state is just one of the many arousal triggers that can activate this forebrain mechanism. The “REM-on” mechanism (like its various NREM equivalents) therefore stands outside the dream process itself, which is mediated by an independent, forebrain “dream-on” mechanism. Key Words: acetylcholine; brainstem; dopamine; dreaming; forebrain; NREM; REM; sleep. (shrink)

Several theories claim that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural function. Phenomenal dream content, however, is not as disorganized as such views imply. The form and content of dreams is not random but organized and selective: during dreaming, the brain constructs a complex model of the world in which certain types of elements, when compared to waking life, are underrepresented whereas others are over represented. Furthermore, dream (...) content is consistently and powerfully modulated by certain types of waking experiences. On the basis of this evidence, I put forward the hypothesis that the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance. To evaluate this hypothesis, we need to consider the original evolutionary context of dreaming and the possible traces it has left in the dream content of the present human population. In the ancestral environment human life was short and full of threats. Any behavioral advantage in dealing with highly dangerous events would have increased the probability of reproductive success. A dream-production mechanism that tends to select threatening waking events and simulate them over and over again in various combinations would have been valuable for the development and maintenance of threat-avoidance skills. Empirical evidence from normative dream content, children's dreams, recurrent dreams, nightmares, post traumatic dreams, and the dreams of hunter-gatherers indicates that our dream-production mechanisms are in fact specialized in the simulation of threatening events, and thus provides support to the threat simulation hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Key Words: dream content; dream function; evolution of consciousness; evolutionary psychology; fear; implicit learning; nightmares; rehearsal; REM; sleep; threat perception. (shrink)

: The central aim of this paper is to offer a historical reconstruction of phenomenological studies on dreaming and to put forward a draft for a phenomenological theory of the dream state. Prominent phenomenologists have offered an extremely valuable interpretation of the dream as an intentional process, stressing its relevance in understanding the complexity of the mental life of subject, the continuous interplay between reality and unreality, and the possibility of building parallel spheres of experience influencing the development (...) of personal identity. Taking into consideration the main characteristics of dream experience emphasized by these scholars, in the final part of the paper I propose to elaborate a new phenomenology of dreaming, which should be able to offer a theoretical description of dream states. My sketched proposal is based on Eugen Fink’s notion of the dream as “presentification”. By combining the past and the present of phenomenological investigation, I aim at suggesting a philosophical framework to explain the intentional features of dreaming as Erlebnis. Keywords : Phenomenology; Dreaming State; Presentification; Erlebnis; Ego La coscienza sognante: un contributo dalla fenomenologia Riassunto : Lo scopo principale di questo articolo è offrire una ricostruzione storica degli studi fenomenologici sul sogno e proporre un abbozzo per una teoria fenomenologia dello stato onirico. Importanti fenomenologi hanno offerto un’interpretazione particolarmente valida del sogno inteso come processo intenzionale, mettendone in rilievo il significato per la comprensione della complessità della vita mentale del soggetto, la continua interazione tra realtà e irrealtà, e la possibilità di costruire sfere parallele di esperienza che esercitano un’influenza sull’identità personale. Prendendo in considerazione le principali caratteristiche dell’esperienza onirica messe in luce da questi studiosi, nella parte finale dell’articolo propongo di elaborare una nuova fenomenologia del sogno, che dovrebbe essere in grado di offrire una descrizione teoretica degli stati onirici. Il mio abbozzo di proposta si basa sulla nozione di “presentificazione” di Eugen Fink. Mettendo insieme il passato e il presente dell’indagine fenomenologica, il mio obiettivo è proporre una cornice filosofica per chiarire le strutture intenzionali del sogno inteso come Erlebnis. Parole chiave : Fenomenologia; Stato onirico; Presentificazione; Erlebnis; Ego. (shrink)

The literature on Dreams of a Spirit-Seer typically emphasises the ways that Kant’s complex 1766 work prefigures his critical turn. Kant indeed criticises Wolffian «dreamers of reason» and defines metaphysics as a «science of the limits of human reason». It has not been noted, however, that Kant’s first restriction on human knowledge in Dreams is targeted at knowledge of fundamental physical forces. Moreover, Kant criticises the ‘pneumatological’ laws of mental forces, insisting that these cannot be known through analogy with (...) physical forces. This paper presents the historical context of Kant’s claims and argues that his critique of the philosophical concept of force (Kraft) is primarily in dialogue with one of Wolff’s most renowned critics, Crusius. On this basis, I contend that Kant’s examination of our capacity to know fundamental physical and mental forces is an important aspect of his early critique of metaphysics. I defend my account by contrasting it with Alison Laywine’s interpretation. (shrink)

To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50 mg or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall . Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either (...) partially or totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage. (shrink)

Dreaming: a process of self-organizationKahn and Hobson (1993) proposed that dreams are a product of self-organization of brain during sleep. As a complex system far from equilibrium state, the dreaming brain may form a new pattern by the interaction between components within this system. At REM sleep stage, signals from neuronal clusters self-organize and form image fragments, then the image fragments interact and produce images, and finally these materials are associated into a relatively continuous narrative (i.e., dreams). This process (...) above happens under a weak control of brain, and the conditions of this state mainly include: (a) the inhibition of external stimuli or feedback; (b) the changes of neuromodulatory systems (e.g., the governance of aminergic neurochemicals and the weakness of cholinergic neurochemicals); (c) the bombardment of PGO wave to the visual cortex; and (d) the changes of neural activity in brain (e.g., the activation of limbic system and the reduction of prefrontal regions). In this situation, the brain could focus on the internal world and integrate various psychological and physiological changes into dream content (Kahn et al., 2002, 2000). However, self-organization mechanism could not determine which memories will be activated and incorporated into dream content (Kahn, 2013), although it provides an approach how an ordered structure, behavior or pattern spontaneously emerges from the interaction between components or subsystems without an e... (shrink)

In the early seventeenth century Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed--from Kepler to Newton to Einstein. But in the early twentieth (...) century when quantum physics, with its deeply complex mathematics, entered into the picture, something began to change. Many physicists began looking to the equations first and physical reality second. As we investigate realms further and further from what we can see and what we can test, we must look to elegant, aesthetically pleasing equations to develop our conception of what reality is. As a result, much of theoretical physics today is something more akin to the philosophy of Plato than the science to which the physicists are heirs. In The Dream Universe, Lindley asks what is science when it becomes completely untethered from measurable phenomena? (shrink)

Introduction -- Elucidating complexity theories -- Complexity in the natural sciences -- Complexity in social theory -- Towards transdisciplinarity -- Complexity in philosophy: complexification and the limits to knowledge -- Complexity in ethics -- Earth in the anthropocene -- Complexity and climate change -- American dreams, ecological nightmares and new visions -- Complexity and sustainability: wicked problems, gordian knots and synergistic solutions -- Conclusion.

This paper approaches dreaming consciousness through an examination of the self-organizing properties of the sleeping brain. This view offers a step toward reconciliation between brain-based and content-based attempts to understand the nature of dreaming. Here it is argued that the brain can be understood as a complex self-organizing system that in dreaming responds to subtle influences such as residual feelings and memories. The hyper-responsiveness of the brain during dreaming is viewed in terms of the tendency of complex chaotic-like (...) systems to respond to small variations in initial conditions and to the amplification of subtle emotional and cognitive signals through the mechanism of stochastic resonance, all in combination with psychophysiological changes in the brain during both slow wave sleep and REM sleep dreaming. Such changes include the active inhibition of extroceptive stimulation and, especially in REM sleep, alterations in the brain's dominant neuromodulatory systems, bombardment of the visual cortex with bursts of PGO activity, increases in limbic system activity, and a reduction of activity in the prefrontal regions. (shrink)

There has been no generally accepted cognitive definition of dreaming. An electrophysiologic correlate (REM sleep) has become its defining characteristic. Dreaming and REM sleep are complex states for which the Dreaming + REMs model is over-simplified and limited. The target articles in this BBS special issue present strong evidence for a dissociation between dreaming and REM sleep. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen, Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman].

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking by Yvonne C. ZimmermanAbbylynn HelgevoldReview of Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking YVONNE C. ZIMMERMAN New York: Oxford, 2013. 223 pp. $35.00In Other Dreams of Freedom, Yvonne Zimmerman develops a genealogical analysis of US antitrafficking policy. She aims to show how antitrafficking initiatives in the United States are influenced by and expressive of distinctively Protestant norms (...) regarding gender, sex, and freedom. Zimmerman argues that US antitrafficking initiatives are limited in their ability to promote [End Page 229] diverse expressions of freedom because they are both implicitly and explicitly framed from within such a religious worldview. As a result of the biases that have shaped US antitrafficking efforts, the complex social phenomenon of human trafficking, which involves a variety of forms of exploitation and abuse, has become essentially identified with the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. According to Zimmerman, this has led to a disproportionate focus on “freeing” trafficking victims from sexual slavery and exploitation to “choose” to live lives that better reflect “good old American values” (126). Instead of respecting the agency of victims and promoting their freedom to make diverse choices about their own lives, current initiatives encourage conformity to “American” (i.e., middle class, white, and Protestant) values. If dreaming “other dreams of freedom” is ever to become a reality for the wide range of individuals who are or have been trafficked, becoming critically aware of these biases is an important first step.Zimmerman’s primary aim is to reveal these biases, and she examines them from a number of different angles. Thus, she examines the historical development of antitrafficking legislation; the gendered and theological language of US antitrafficking public policy; the implementation of policy under the Bush and Obama administrations; and the historical influence of distinctively Protestant conceptions of human freedom, morality, and sexual expression on what many typically consider to be “traditional American values.” Zimmerman’s analysis urges readers to become critically aware of how the language used in public policy communicates and enforces particular norms. She highlights the gendered language that normativizes female passivity and male aggression, and pays close attention to the deeper theological meaning of terms like “evil” and “God-given potential” used in US public policy that link Christian understandings of freedom to sexual expression. According to Zimmerman, understanding the religious moral imagination evoked by such language helps to explain the otherwise unreasonable “conflation of sex work and human trafficking” in US policy (173).On the whole, the threads of sex, gender, and freedom that Zimmerman picks up are generally well supported throughout Other Dreams. Her research also raises some difficult questions that are beyond the scope of her book but worth considering. For example, even if the language of evil carries with it certain theological assumptions, is it possible that there are good reasons for using such language in addition to the language of justice? Or, even if one challenges the Protestant norms that are being used to shape antitrafficking efforts, are there other reasons for supporting the policy that is in place?Zimmerman’s book is clear, well-written, and accessible. Other Dreams of Freedom will likely appeal to a number of different audiences: diverse scholars interested in the relationship between religion and public policy; political activists, social workers, or policy makers interested in the problem of human [End Page 230] trafficking; and teachers of advanced undergraduate or graduate courses that deal with these issues. Other Dreams of Freedom is edifying, thought-provoking, and timely. As more attention turns toward the global social problem of human trafficking it is important that the policies in place and the activities of those who implement them are not hampered in their usefulness by unexplored biases.Abbylynn HelgevoldUniversity of Northern IowaCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Building on the content, developmental, and neurological evidence that there are numerous parallels between waking cognition and dreaming, this article argues that the likely neural substrate that supports dreaming, which was discovered through converging lesion and neuroimaging studies, may be a subsystem of the waking default network, which is active during mind wandering, daydreaming, and simulation. Support for this hypothesis would strengthen the case for a more general neurocognitive theory of dreaming that starts with established findings and concepts derived from (...) studies of waking cognition and neurocognition. If this theory is correct, then dreaming may be the quintessential cognitive simulation because it is often highly complex, often includes a vivid sensory environment, unfolds over a duration of a few minutes to a half hour, and is usually experienced as real while it is happening. (shrink)

There is a perennial philosophical dream of a certain natural order for the natural kinds. The name of this dream is ‘the hierarchy requirement’. According to this postulate, proper natural kinds form a taxonomy which is both unique and traditional. Here I demonstrate that complex scientific objects exist: objects which generate different systems of scientific classification, produce myriad legitimate alternatives amongst the nonetheless still natural kinds, and make the hierarchical dream impossible to realize, except at absurdly (...) great cost. Philosophical hopes for a certain order in nature cannot be fulfilled. Natural kinds crosscut one another, ubiquitously so, and this crosscutting spells the end of the hierarchical dream. (shrink)

Reinterpreting the American Dream is a uniquely pragmatic book on ethics and religion in today's world. Primeaux uncovers the complexity of human nature, in all of its potential for evolution. Though written from a Catholic viewpoint, the book encourages openness in the search for truth, postulating that this quest is the ultimate meaning in life. In an approach that emphasizes honesty with respect for others, and pragmatism with an eye for growth, the author sets the stage for those individuals (...) who want to escape from the 'disconnections of independence and the connections of dependence into the interconnections of interdependence.' A challenging read on a personal level, yet highly applicable to business ethics and the larger society, Reinterpreting the American Dream will be of interest to philosophers, sociologists, students of ethics and the general educated public. (shrink)

Dream is a state of consciousness characterized by internally-generated sensory, cognitive and emotional experiences occurring during sleep. Dream reports tend to be particularly abundant, with complex, emotional, and perceptually vivid experiences after awakenings from rapid eye movement sleep. This is why our current knowledge of the cerebral correlates of dreaming, mainly derives from studies of REM sleep. Neuroimaging results show that REM sleep is characterized by a specific pattern of regional brain activity. We demonstrate that this heterogeneous (...) distribution of brain activity during sleep explains many typical features in dreams. Reciprocally, specific dream characteristics suggest the activation of selective brain regions during sleep. Such an integration of neuroimaging data of human sleep, mental imagery, and the content of dreams is critical for current models of dreaming; it also provides neurobiological support for an implication of sleep and dreaming in some important functions such as emotional regulation. (shrink)

At Theaetetus 201d-202c5 Socrates claims to have dreamt that we can have no knowledge of the simple elements of which we and all other things are composed, since no logos or ‘rational account’ can be given of them. We can, however, give a logos, and thereby acquire knowledge of a complex entity, a logos being understood in a minimal way as a combination of names. I argue that in his presentation and criticism of his ‘dream theory’ Plato systematically (...) employs two different words for knowledge, gnôsis and epistêmê. Whenever Socrates expresses agreement with the theory, he affirms that there can be neither a logos nor any epistêmê or ‘scientific knowledge’ of the simple elements, although we can give a logos and thereby have epistêmê of the larger complexes. But when he expresses disagreement with the theory, he challenges its claim that there can be no gnôsis, no ‘acquaintance with’ or ‘recognition’ of any individual element. Taking as his test case our knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, he concludes that elements in general give us gnôsis that is much clearer than that of the complexes’. I conclude that through the presentation and refutation of Socrates’ dream theory Plato was pointing up the need for perception-based acquaintance with the world, in addition to having propositional knowledge about it. (shrink)

Sleep and dream visions as revelations, narrative devices, signs of illness, and aesthetic-artistic formulae alongside their interpretations, are common experiences shared by all cultures throughout the ages. They exhibit an astonishing variety of contexts and meanings. Rather than abstract time, with its mathematical indistinctness, a dialectical concreteness of signs and symbols in culture determines the specificity and character of dream experience and its complex hermeneutic.

Consensus is the holy grail of bioethics, the lynch pin of the assumption that well informed, well intentioned people may reach generally acceptable positions on ethically contentious issues. It has been especially important in bioethics, where advancing technology has assured an increasing field of complex medical dilemmas. This paper results on the use of a multicriterion decision making system (MCDM) analyzing group process in an attempt to better define hospital policy. In a pilot program at The Hospital for Sick (...) Children, Toronto, a series of small scale focus groups was constituted to examine criteria defining organ transplant eligibility. Criteria were organized hierarchically using the Analytic Hierarchy Process, an MCDM approach, and the resulting data was analyzed using Expert Choice 9.0, software designed to facilitate AHP analysis. Qualitative and quantitative analysis map barriers to practical consensus in a way not previously possible. (shrink)

The recent claiming of Simone de Beauvoir's legacy by French feminists for a policy of assimilation of Muslim women to Western models of self and society reduces the complexity and richness of Beauvoir's views in inacceptable ways. This article explores to what extent a politics of difference that challenges the ideals and political strategies of abstract liberalism can be extracted from and legitimized by the philosophies of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Without assuming their thought is identical, we can (...) read them as elucidating each other and as implicitly exposing weak and strong points in their respective philosophies on ethnocultural relations and social identities. (shrink)

We present experimental evidence that an interpretation was accurate. Current wisdom notwithstanding, we could interpret from the text alone because its information is redundant: repetition provides internal checks. Knowing neither dreamer nor their associations we made falsifiable predictions that we tested by subsequently gathering information about the dreamer. Predictions were supported. Results were repeated with seven additional dreams. Each dream was tightly crafted, used humor, drama or hyperbole to penetrate the dreamer’s defenses, and furthered the emergence of personality. Our (...) experiment compliments fMRI and statistics because it studies a whole text as a unique narrative: one iteration identified healing steps during therapy; another confirmed the psychological meaning of a myth. Our experiment might generate a body of objective knowledge about interpretation and make interpretation itself more accurate. In the US 20% live with mental illness. Our experiment supports talk therapy against pressure from the drug and insurance industries. (shrink)

The issues touched on in my work range between individual creation and social consciousness. We have entered an age of alienation brought on by specialization, a by-product of the Information Age. This is an age of complexity, when knowledge and ideas are coming in faster than can be assimilated, while disciplines become progressively alienated from each other through specialization. The hard-won knowledge that accumulates undigested, blocking meaningful communication. Clearly defined direction for mankind is lacking. The turn of the century and (...) the next millennium will usher in a troubled environment and a troubled psyche.Making art today is synonymous with assuming responsibility for our fellow man. I am concerned with the fact that we have taken evolution into our own hands. We are the first species that has the ability to consciously alter its evolution, modify itself at will, even put an end to its existence. We have gotten hold of our destiny and our impact on earth is astounding. Because of our tremendous success we are overrunning the planet, squandering its resources. We are young as a species, even younger as a civilization, and like reckless children initiate processes we cannot control. We tend to overproduce, overuse, and quickly tire of things. We also overreact, panic, and self-correct in hindsight. The pluralistic nature of things creates too many variables, confusing the goals to be achieved. Sustained interest and effective action are diminished with the alienation of the individual who feels little potential to interact or identify effectively with society as a whole. Overview for mankind is lacking and as the momentum increases human values tend to decline. Agnes Denes has had over 250 solo and group exhibitions on four continents since 1965. She has participated in such major international exhibitions as Project ’74, Cologne; the 1976 Biennale of Sydney, Australia; Documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany; and the Venice Biennales of 1978 and 1980. In 1989, she received her fourth National Endowment Individual Artist Fellowship. She has published four books, including The Book of Dust—The Beginning and the End of Time and Thereafter. (shrink)

This is a book about space. On a first level, it reflects traditional Japanese ideas of space against various “items” of Western culture. Among these items are Bakhtin's “dialogicity”, Wittgenstein’s Lebensform, and “virtual space” or “globalized” space as representatives of the latest development of an “alienated”, modern spatial experience. Some of the Western concepts of space appear as negative counter examples to “basho-like”, Japanese places; others turn out to be compatible with the Japanese idea of space. On a second level, (...) the book attempts to synthesize, by constantly transgressing the limits of a purely comparative activity, a quantity which the author believes to be existent in Japanese culture that is called “the virtual”. Be it Kuki Shûzô's hermeneutics of non-foundation or his ontology of dream, Nishida Kitarô’s virtual definition of the body of state, or Kimura Bin's notion of “in-between” (aida) that is so closely associated with the “virtual space” of Noh plays: what all these conceptions have in common is that they aim to transcend a flat notion of “reality” by developing “the virtual” as a complex ontological unity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:173. PERCHANCE TO DREAM: A REPLY TO TRAIGER1 In "Hume on Memory and Causation" I argued that Hume took ideas of the memory to be relative ideas corresponding to definite descriptions of the general form "the complex impression that is the (original) cause of a particular positive idea m and which exactly (or closely) resembles m, " where 'm' is a variable ranging over positive ideas (mental (...) images). My argument was based primarily upon what I called Hume's formal criterion, i.e., Hume's contention that, unlike the imagination, memory preserves "the same order and form with the original impressions" (T9), it preserves "the original order and position of its ideas" (T85). Saul Traiger has recently taken exception to my interpretation of Hume, suggesting that my interpretation suffers from at least four defects. First, Traiger maintains that there is evidence that Hume took some ideas of the memory to be simple, while my account requires that they are all complex. Secondly, he maintains that my interpretation will not allow Hume to remember dreams or the contents of his imaginings, and Traiger contends that this provides at least prima facie evidence against my interpretation. Thirdly, he maintains that my account of the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination. Finally, he raises several questions regarding the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. I do not believe that any of Traiger's points require a significant modification of my account. I shall begin by discussing his third and fourth points and then focus 2 on his first and second points. 1. Memories and fictions. Traiger suggests that if my account of the formal criterion is correct, the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish 174, ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination, "because there are complex ideas which are caused by resembling complex impressions but which are not memories" (FHAM, p. 170). He illustrates this by appealing to a writer of fiction who might appeal to some of his memories in constructing his fictitious world. Why, then, would not the resulting ideas of fiction count as ideas of the memory, since they meet both the causal conditions and the order and position requirements? The answer is that in the case of an idea of fiction one does not conceive of one's positive idea as a representative of some other perception. It is only because one conceives of the positive idea of which one is aware in memory as a representative of some other particular perception or perceptions that questions of form and order come into play. 2. Temporal reference. At several places in his paper, Traiger raises questions concerning the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. He suggests, first, that Hume's concern with "order" was with temporal order, rather than the order and arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory (FHAM, p. 168), and, secondly, that "when we remember, we place an impression in its temporal context, its place among a temporal sequence of perceptions" and this "temporal reference is generally not secured by the causal and resemblance relations an idea bears to an antecedent impression" (FHAM, p. 171). Regarding the first of these claims, it is clear that an idea of the memory can be "true" only if it represents a past impression or event, and since Hume construed representation in terms of resemblance (T233), this indicates that at least part of his concern with "order" must be with the arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory. Were it not for 175. such a correspondence between the "order" of simple ideas in the positive component of one's relative idea of the memory and the "order" of the simple impressions in the original impression, one's idea of the memory could not represent the original impression. Resemblance, however, plays no role in determining what the temporal position of the original impression was, and this brings us to Traiger's second point. Since Hume's account of time would seem to require that one locate a past impression within a series... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain (...) system can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

Australian Aboriginal cosmology is centered on The Dreaming, which has an eternal nature. It has been referred to as "everywhen" to articulate its timelessness. Starting with the assumption that "waking" reality is only one type of experienced reality, we investigate the concept of timelessness as it pertains to the Aboriginal worldview. We begin by questioning whether in fact "Dreaming" is an appropriate translation of a complex Aboriginal concept, then discuss whether there is any relationship between dreaming and The Dreaming. (...) We then discuss Aboriginal ceremonial performance, during which actors are said to become Dreaming Ancestors, using as a frame of reference the "flow" experience explicated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi together with Alfred Schutz's "mutual tuning-in relationship." © 2009 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:173. PERCHANCE TO DREAM: A REPLY TO TRAIGER1 In "Hume on Memory and Causation" I argued that Hume took ideas of the memory to be relative ideas corresponding to definite descriptions of the general form "the complex impression that is the (original) cause of a particular positive idea m and which exactly (or closely) resembles m, " where 'm' is a variable ranging over positive ideas (mental (...) images). My argument was based primarily upon what I called Hume's formal criterion, i.e., Hume's contention that, unlike the imagination, memory preserves "the same order and form with the original impressions" (T9), it preserves "the original order and position of its ideas" (T85). Saul Traiger has recently taken exception to my interpretation of Hume, suggesting that my interpretation suffers from at least four defects. First, Traiger maintains that there is evidence that Hume took some ideas of the memory to be simple, while my account requires that they are all complex. Secondly, he maintains that my interpretation will not allow Hume to remember dreams or the contents of his imaginings, and Traiger contends that this provides at least prima facie evidence against my interpretation. Thirdly, he maintains that my account of the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination. Finally, he raises several questions regarding the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. I do not believe that any of Traiger's points require a significant modification of my account. I shall begin by discussing his third and fourth points and then focus 2 on his first and second points. 1. Memories and fictions. Traiger suggests that if my account of the formal criterion is correct, the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish 174, ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination, "because there are complex ideas which are caused by resembling complex impressions but which are not memories" (FHAM, p. 170). He illustrates this by appealing to a writer of fiction who might appeal to some of his memories in constructing his fictitious world. Why, then, would not the resulting ideas of fiction count as ideas of the memory, since they meet both the causal conditions and the order and position requirements? The answer is that in the case of an idea of fiction one does not conceive of one's positive idea as a representative of some other perception. It is only because one conceives of the positive idea of which one is aware in memory as a representative of some other particular perception or perceptions that questions of form and order come into play. 2. Temporal reference. At several places in his paper, Traiger raises questions concerning the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. He suggests, first, that Hume's concern with "order" was with temporal order, rather than the order and arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory (FHAM, p. 168), and, secondly, that "when we remember, we place an impression in its temporal context, its place among a temporal sequence of perceptions" and this "temporal reference is generally not secured by the causal and resemblance relations an idea bears to an antecedent impression" (FHAM, p. 171). Regarding the first of these claims, it is clear that an idea of the memory can be "true" only if it represents a past impression or event, and since Hume construed representation in terms of resemblance (T233), this indicates that at least part of his concern with "order" must be with the arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory. Were it not for 175. such a correspondence between the "order" of simple ideas in the positive component of one's relative idea of the memory and the "order" of the simple impressions in the original impression, one's idea of the memory could not represent the original impression. Resemblance, however, plays no role in determining what the temporal position of the original impression was, and this brings us to Traiger's second point. Since Hume's account of time would seem to require that one locate a past impression within a series... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain (...) system can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

A familiar injunction is to follow your dreams. But what are these dreams? Despite their importance, philosophers have almost entirely ignored the topic. This paper fills this gap by advancing an account of the psychological makeup and the normative powers of dreams. To elucidate their psychology, I identify the salient features of dreams. I argue that these features are explained by the hypothesis that dreams are a species of hope. More specifically, the proposal is that dreams fit the standard model (...) of hope, which characterizes hope in terms of desire and belief. But this analysis is only plausible if hope, so understood, is suited to play the normative roles that dreams appear to play (otherwise the significance of dreams will need to be deflated). I argue that dream-constituting desires play a dual normative role: they ground weighty practical reasons (rooted in the identity of the dreamer) and likewise help us to learn about our reasons for action. I argue that hope in the standard sense can fulfill both roles. So while many philosophers in recent years have been focused on analyzing more complex forms of hope, it turns out that our most basic hopes are among the most normatively significant. (shrink)

Autoscopic phenomena are complex experiences that include the visual illusory reduplication of one’s own body. From a phenomenological point of view, we can distinguish three conditions: autoscopic hallucinations, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences. The dysfunctional pattern involves multisensory disintegration of personal and extrapersonal space perception. The etiology, generally either neurological or psychiatric, is different. Also, the hallucination of Self and own body image is present during dreams and differs according to sleep stage. Specifically, the representation of the Self in REM (...) dreams is frequently similar to the perception of Self in wakefulness, whereas in NREM dreams, a greater polymorphism of Self and own body representation is observed. The parallels between autoscopic phenomena in pathological cases and the Self-hallucination in dreams will be discussed to further the understanding of the particular states of self awareness, especially the complex integration of different memory sources in Self and body representation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The First Experiment The Second Experiment Education as Awakening Vocation Vocation and Response‐ability Toward an Ethical Pedagogy Notes References.

"The great value of the book lies in the manner in which May relates the expansionist urge to the "symbolic" differences emerging between the North and the South. The result is a balanced account that contributes to the efforts of historians to understand the causes of the Civil War."--Journal of American History "The most ambitious effort yet to relate the Caribbean question to the larger picture of southern economic and political anxieties, and to secession. The core of this superbly documented (...) book is a detailed description of expansionist ideology and activities during the 1850s."--Civil War History A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin. May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics. May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question. Robert E. May is professor of history at Purdue University. (shrink)

Recently, there has been an increased interest in employing model-based definitions of actual causation in legal inquiry. The formal precision of such approaches promises to be an improvement over more traditional approaches. Yet model-based approaches are viable only if suitable models of legal cases can be provided, and providing such models is sometimes difficult. I argue that causal-model-based definitions benefit legal inquiry in an indirect way. They make explicit the causal assumptions that need to be made plausible to defend a (...) particular claim of actual causation. My argument concerns the analysis of legal cases involving a combination of double prevention and causal redundancy. I show that discussions among legal theorists about such cases sometimes suffer from ambiguous assumptions about the causal structure. My account illustrates that causal models can act as a heuristic tool for clarifying such assumptions, and that causal models provide a framework for more accurate analyses of legal cases involving complex causal structure. (shrink)

Unlike identity physicalism, ground physicalism does not achieve the physicalist dream. It faces the T-shirt problem for ground physicalism (Pautz 2014; Schaffer this volume; Rubenstein ms). In the case of insentient nature, it may be able to get by with small handful of very general ground laws to explain the emergence of nonfundamental objects and properties – for example, a few “principle of plenitude”. But I argue that for the case consciousness it will require a separate huge raft of (...) special, anomalous psychophysical ground laws. So it is just as complex and nonuniform as dualism. (shrink)

Dreaming in sleep must depend on the activity of the brain as does cognition and memory in wakefulness. Yet our understanding of the physiological subtleties of state differences may still be too primitive to guide theories adequately in these areas. One can state nonetheless unequivocally that the brain in REM is poorly equipped to practice for eventualities of wakefulness through dreaming, or for consolidating into memory the complex experiences of that state. [Hobson et al., Nielsen, Solms, Vertes & Eastman, (...) Revonsuo]. (shrink)

The complexity and mysteriousness of mental processes during sleep rule out thinking only in term of generators. How could we know exactly what mental sleep experience (MSE) is produced and when? To refer to REM versus NREM as separate time windows for MSE seems insufficient. We propose that in each cycle NREM and REM interact to allow mentation to reach a certain degree of complexity and consolidation in memory. Each successive cycle within a sleep episode should contribute to these processes (...) with a different weight according to the time of night and distance from sleep onset. This view would avoid assuming too great a separation between REM and NREM functions and attributing psychological functions only to a single state. [Nielsen]. (shrink)

Meaning and nature are this book’s principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide when meanings of a global sort—ideologies and religions, for example—promote ontologies that subordinate nature. Setting one against the other makes reality contentious. It signifies workmates and a coal face to miners, gluons to physicists, prayer and redemption to priests. Are there many realities, or many perspectives on one? The answer I prefer is the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: (...) "natura naturans, natura naturata." Nature naturing is an array of mutually conditioning material processes in spacetime. Each structure or event—storm clouds forming, nature natured—is self-differentiating, self-stabilizing, and sometimes self-disassembling; each alters or transforms a pre-existing state of affairs. This surmise anticipated discoveries and analyses to which neither thinker had access, though physics and biology confirm their hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt. Hence the question this book considers: Is reality divided:nature vrs. lived experience? Or is experience, with all its meanings and values, the complex expression of natural processes? (shrink)

This paper investigates the distribution characteristics of word lengths in the Dream of the Red Chamber, measured in terms of the number of syllables or characters. The results show that the frequency distribution of words of different lengths in the DRC abides by the extended logarithmic distribution model. A comparison between the first forty, the middle forty, and the last forty chapters shows that the distribution of word lengths in these three parts does not differ significantly, which sheds light (...) on the authorship of the novel. (shrink)

In the film “Kaili Blues” by Bi Gan, intricate clues create complex connections between the plots steered by various characters. This relationship manifests in splitting time and alternating between dream and reality. This article analyzes Bi Gan’s approach to temporality and dreams by focusing on how he employs various film metaphors to deal with poetic narratives in his films. The article consists of three sections: First, it introduces the (puzzle) storytelling form of “Kaili Blues” as a promising area (...) in many Chinese films. Second, it examines how puzzle films contribute to the ambiguity (plots) between characters from the perspective of infinite games. Moreover, third, the article discusses the two levels of metaphors in “Kaili Blues” that result from the condensation and displacement of metaphors, including the mutual projection of roles caused by the time-forking effect and the audience’s associations caused by the significance of dreams in Chinese tradition (or local) culture. (shrink)

In L'Arrêt de mort, as Derrida suggests, an ‘epochal suspension’ manifests itself, compulsively pulsating so as to conjure a certain spectrality beyond all consciousness, perception, or ordinary attentiveness. Re-reading Blanchot's text, I argue that it is on the borderlines of sleep that the ‘arrythmic pulsation’ of the arrêt de mort happens as impossible event – ‘the state of suspension in which it's over – and over again, and you'll never have done with that suspension itself’, to quote Derrida once more. (...) While ‘Living On’ makes little of sleep, however, I take this cue to follow a pathway which leads from Blanchot to Levinas. Blanchot's writing exposes the sleep of reason which occurs in the very promise of perfect day, a promise which mutates in the dream he associates with the ‘other night’, a dream which harbours the irrepressible return of ‘time's absence’, and which opens on to the very ‘outside’ which the world – and the self – lacks or wants (as much as ‘world’ or ‘self’ seek to overcome this ‘outside’ as such). Levinas, meanwhile, wants to think irremissible pure existing (il y a) in terms of insomnia; in contrast, consciousness seeks to assert itself over the unremitting presence of the ‘there is’ through its capacity for unconsciousness or sleep. This essay seeks to attend to the complexities of a certain ‘fatality of being’ that threatens to sweep away the ‘ego’ as consciousness's capacity to sleep is confronted by the radical vigilance of insomnia and the deep anonymity of the night (Existence and Existents). (shrink)

The recent chiming of Simone de Beauvoir's legacy by French feminists for a policy of assimilation of Muslim women to Western models of self and society reduces the complexity and richness of Beauvoir's views in inacceptable ways. This article explores to what extent a politics of difference that challenges the ideals and political strategies of abstract liberalism can be extracted from and legitimized by the philosophies of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Without assuming their thought is identical, we can (...) read them as elucidating each other and as implicitly exposing weak and strong points in their respective philosophies on ethnocultural rehtions and social identities. (shrink)

The island of Palawan stretches northward from Borneo like a bridge to Luzon in the South China Sea. This tropical forest environment, rich in thousands of species of plants and animals, is home to about 50,000 people, known as the Palawan. Besides hunting with blowpipes, traps, spears, and dogs, these people also practice shifting cultivation. Hunting and gathering activities as well as work in the fields follow the alternation of two seasons, the “monsoon” and the “heat,” barat and bulag. As (...) an integral ecosystem, swidden places a high value on mobility rather than on land property. Land tenure, and recourse to physical violence of all kinds are considered unethical behavior. Social life among the Palawan is governed by a bilateral or undifferentiated kinship system, a complex customary law based on rules and values dictated by “the tradition of the Ancestors,” Adat ät Kägunggurangan. (shrink)

According to modern categorizations, the commentaries on the Holy Scriptures by Albert the Great are not philosophical works and therefore they have received minimal attention in the field of Albertine studies. Super Matthaeum, for example, is one of the least studied in existing research. As a result, the complexity of the relationships between biblical interpretation and the philosophical and theological disciplines are surprising to the researcher used to seeing in Albert a kind of two-headed Janus – either the natural philosopher (...) or the metaphysician, either the natural scientist or the theologian. Albert himself provided occasion for such a dichotomous view. He often held that theologica non conveniunt cum philosophicis in principiis. Nevertheless, some studies have already documented the clear presence of the “philosophical” Albert alongside Albert the “theologian” and “biblical interpreter.” The present contribution offers a particular case study by analyzing Albert’s exegesis of the words in somnis in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. This is a long passage in which the Dominican master makes extensive use of philosophical theories on divination through dreams, which he had already presented in De somno et vigilia. According to Albert’s exegesis, the visio prophetalis experienced by Joseph in Matthew’s Gospel is the same kind experienced by Socrates, the first prophet, and the natural philosopher described in De somno et vigilia. (shrink)

Freud's seminal work The Interpretation of Dreams helped to shape the culture of modernism of the twentieth century and launched the discipline of psychoanalysis, which continues influence our understanding of human subjectivity and the workings of the unconscious today but the original text is complex and quite dense for anyone who is unfamiliar with Freud's work. Tracing the evolution of the text from a regional theory of psychopathology, to Freud's model for the 'apparatus of the soul' which outlines the (...) formation of some of his best known theories, The Routledge Guidebook to Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams provides an accessible introduction to Freud's work which assesses: Freud's life and the historical context of the text A critical discussion of the text, which examines its relation to Freud's attempts to create a theory of human subjectivity The cultural impact of The Interpretation of Dreams Offering a close reading of the text, this is essential reading for anyone studying this enormously influential work. (shrink)

As many as two million people in the United Kingdom repeatedly see people, animals, and objects that have no objective reality. Hallucinations on the border of sleep, dementing illnesses, delirium, eye disease, and schizophrenia account for 90% of these. The remainder have rarer disorders. We review existing models of recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) in the awake person, including cortical irritation, cortical hyperexcitability and cortical release, top-down activation, misperception, dream intrusion, and interactive models. We provide evidence that these (...) can neither fully account for the phenomenology of RCVH, nor for variations in the frequency of RCVH in different disorders. We propose a novel Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model for RCVH. A combination of impaired attentional binding and poor sensory activation of a correct proto-object, in conjunction with a relatively intact scene representation, bias perception to allow the intrusion of a hallucinatory proto-object into a scene perception. Incorporation of this image into a context-specific hallucinatory scene representation accounts for repetitive hallucinations. We suggest that these impairments are underpinned by disturbances in a lateral frontal cortex–ventral visual stream system. We show how the frequency of RCVH in different diseases is related to the coexistence of attentional and visual perceptual impairments; how attentional and perceptual processes can account for their phenomenology; and that diseases and other states with high rates of RCVH have cholinergic dysfunction in both frontal cortex and the ventral visual stream. Several tests of the model are indicated, together with a number of treatment options that it generates. Key Words: Blindness; Charles Bonnet; cholinergic; cortical release; delirium; dementia; dream intrusion; hallucination; Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model; schizophrenia. (shrink)