The complex sensation of vision begins with the relatively simple photoisomerization of the visual pigment chromophore 11-cis-retinal to its all-trans configuration. This event initiates a series of biochemical reactions that are collectively referred to as phototransduction, which ultimately lead to a change in the electrochemical signaling of the photoreceptor cell. To operate in a wide range of light intensities, however, the phototransduction pathway must allow for adjustments to background light. These take place through physiological adaptation processes that rely primarily on (...) Ca2+ ions. While Ca2+ may modulate some activities directly, it is more often the case that Ca2+-binding proteins mediate between transient changes in the concentration of Ca2+ and the adaptation processes that are associated with phototransduction. Recently, combined genetic, physiological, and biochemical analyses have yielded new insights about the properties and functions of many phototransduction-specific components, including some novel Ca2+-binding proteins. Understanding these Ca2+-binding proteins will provide a more complete picture of visual transduction, including the mechanisms associated with adaptation, and of related degenerative diseases. BioEssays 22:337–350, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Transcriptional regulation is coupled with numerous intracellular signaling processes often mediated by second messengers. Now, growing evidence points to the importance of Ca2+, one of the most versatile second messengers, in activating or inhibiting gene transcription through actions frequently mediated by members of the EF‐hand superfamily of Ca2+‐binding proteins. Calmodulin and calcineurin, representative members of this EF‐hand superfamily, indirectly regulate transcription through phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of transcription factors in response to a Ca2+ increase in the cell. Recently, a novel EF‐hand Ca2+‐binding protein (...) called DREAM has been found to interact with regulatory sequences of DNA, thereby acting as a direct regulator of transcription. Finally, S100B, a dimeric EF‐hand Ca2+‐binding protein, interacts with the tumor suppressor p53 and controls its transcriptional activity. In light of the structural studies reported to date, this review provides an overview of the structural basis of EF‐hand Ca2+‐binding proteins linked with transcriptional regulation. BioEssays 24:625–636, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION, AND REPRESENTATION IN THE SEMIOTIC OF JOHN POINSOT1 }AMES BERNARD MURPHY Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire 1) Language and the Semiotic of John Poinsot HE SEMIOTIC of John Poinsot is to the study of gns what physics is to the study of nature. Physics is oth the most fundamental and the most general science of nature. All natural processes, from the motion of planets to the (...) division of cells, are governed by, but not only by, laws of physics. Similarly, the semiotic of John Poinsot (traditionally known by his Dominican name, John of St. Thomas) is the most fundamental and general science of signs. The actions of all signs -from natural signs such as footprints and symptoms of disease, to signs of communication, such as logical operators and linguistic signs, to signs in cognition, such as concepts and percepts -are governed by, but not only by, the fundamental relational logic of semiosis set forth in his Ars Logica [1632]. If C. S. Peirce can be said to give us a chemistry of sixty-six signcompounds, John Poinsot, suitably revised, gives us the basic physical laws of motion that bring sign, object, and mind into relation.2 i The author would like to acknowledge gratefully the fellowships received from the American Council of Learned Societies and from Dartmouth College supporting the research of this article. I also wish to acknowledge the help of my research assistant, Daniel Glazer, in hunting down many essential books and articles. John Deely assisted by correcting my discussion of some of the finer points of Poinsot's theory as well as by providing many other helpful suggestions for revision. 2 The first modern author to point this out was Jacques Maritain, especially in "Signe et symbole," Revue Thomiste 44 (April 1938), pp. 299-300 and 569 570 JAMES BERNARD MURPHY What I wish to explore here is the question: To what extent does the semiotic of John Poinsot account for the meaning of linguistic signs? In one sense, we cannot expect such a fundamental and general theory of the action of signs to tell us much about language. Language is a surpassingly complex and, in many ways, a unique sign-system. Expecting a general theory of signs to capture the meaning of the linguistic sign is like expecting physics to explain reproductive biology. In another sense, though, we ought to expect his semiotic to illuminate that preeminent system of signs, human language. For in addition to "Le Langage et la theorie du signe," Anne.:re au chapitre II of Quatre essais sur!'esprit dans sa condition charnelle (Nouvelle edition revue et augmentee; Paris: Alsatia, 1956), pp. 113-124. This latter essay appears in a modestly amplified English version, " Language and the Theory of Sign," from Language : An Enquiry into Its Meaning and Function, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957), pp. 86-101; and, fully annotated in relation to Poinsot's Tractatus de Signis, it has been reprinted in Frontiers in Semiotics, edited by John Deely, Brooke Williams, and Felicia Kruse (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 51-62. Following Maritain, a number of authors have attempted to apply Poinsot's semiotic to contemporary debates. I note the principal ones in chronological order: John A. Oesterle, " Another Approach to the Problem of Meaning," The Thomist 7 (1944), pp. 233-263; John Wild, "An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Signs," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8 (December 1947), pp. 217-244; Henry B. Veatch, Intentional Logic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952). Poinsot's Treatise on Signs was originally published in 1632 as a small part of volume 2 in the original five volumes (Alcala, Spain: 1631-1635) of his philosophical writings. These five volumes have been published as three volumes under the title Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus in the modern edition by Beatus Reiser (Turin: Marietti, 1930, 1933, 1937). The first independent presentation of Poinsot's complete Tractatus de Signis was prepared by John Deely in consultation with Ralph A. Powell and published in bilingual critical edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Since the publication of this edition of the Tractatus, two major critiques and reconstructions of Poinsot's analysis... (shrink)

Recent history makes clear that the quantum leaps being made in technology are the leading edge of a groundswell of paradigm shifts taking place in science, politics, economics, social institutions, and the expression of cultural values. Indeed it is the simultaneity and interdependence of these changes occurring in every dimension of human experience and endeavor that makes the present so historically distinctive. The essays gathered here give voice to perspectives on the always improvised relationship between technology and cultural values from (...) Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific. Contributors: Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, Roger T. Ames,Yoko Arisaka, Carl Becker, Francesca Bray, James Buchanan, Arindam Chakrabarti, Frank W. Derringh, Rolf Elberfeld, Charles Ess, Andrew Feenberg, Susantha Goonatilake, H. Jiuan Heng, Peter Hershock, Thomas P. Kasulis, George Khushf, David Farrell Krell, Joel J. Kupperman, William R. LaFleur, Lois Ann Lorentzen, David Loy, Joseph Margolis, Hans-Georg Möller, Robert Cummings Neville, Peimin Ni, Monica Atieno Opole, Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ, Helen Petrovsky, Ramon Sentmartí, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Vasanthi Srinivasan, Marietta Stepaniants, Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Henk ten Have, Paul B.Thompson, Mary Tiles, David B.Wong. (shrink)

An approach to argument macrostructure -- The dialectical nature of argument -- Toulmin's problematic notion of warrant -- The linked-convergent distinction, a first approximation -- Argument structure and disciplinary perspective : the linked-convergent versus multiple-co-ordinatively compound distinctions -- The linked-convergent distinction, refining the criterion -- Argument structure and enthymemes -- From analysis to evaluation.

Among the more significant developments of the twentieth century, the widespread attention given to 'rights issues' must surely justify ranking it somewhere near the top. Never before has the issue of rights attracted such a wide audience or stirred so much controversy. Until very recently 'rights' were traditionally recognized as attributable only to humans. Today, we increasingly are hearing a call to extend 'rights' to the nonhuman animal and, on occasion, to the environment. In this book, James B. Reichmann, (...) S.J., undertakes an investigation of the metaethical grounds of 'rights' theory, with special focus on the controversial issue of whether creatures other than humans can and should be considered true subjects of 'rights.' He contends that before assigning rights to this or that individual or group, whether human or not, we need to be very clear about what it is we are assigning, to whom, and why. The book argues forcefully that the various recent efforts to build a case supporting animal and environmental 'rights' fail in their quest, and that any such effort resting on a Darwinian evolutionary base is likewise condemned to fail. In furtherance of this claim the author first investigates life phenomena, followed by a detailed comparative study of knowing, communicating and doing, as these are observed in the human and the nonhuman animal. This in turn is followed by an overview of diverse views advanced by contemporary environmental ethicists and animal 'rights' advocates, including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, J. Baird Callicott, Laura Westra, and Don E. Marietta, Jr. Representative though doubtless provocative conclusions drawn from this study include the claims that: (1) Classic Darwinian theory provides no admissable premise from which to derive a theory of inherent, inalienable rights. (2) No satisfactory explanation of the origin of rights and obligation can derive save from within the context of natural law theory. (3) The human person alone unqualifiedly possesses rights. (4) The view that vegetarianism is an ethical mandate is neither compatible with the Christian world view, nor philosophically sound. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: James B. Reichmann, S.J., is professor emeritus of philosophy at Seattle University where he continues to teach. (shrink)

A key question in disability studies, philosophy, and bioethics concerns the relationship between disability and well-being. The mere difference view, endorsed by Elizabeth Barnes, claims that physical and sensory disabilities by themselves do not make a person worse off overall—any negative impacts on welfare are due to social injustice. This article argues that Barnes’s Value Neutral Model does not extend to intellectual disability. Intellectual disability is (1) intrinsically bad—by itself it makes a person worse off, apart from a non-accommodating environment; (...) (2) universally bad—it lowers quality of life for every intellectually disabled person; and (3) globally bad—it reduces a person’s overall well-being. While people with intellectual disabilities are functionally disadvantaged, this does not imply that they are morally inferior—lower quality of life does not mean lesser moral status. No clinical implications concerning disability-based selective abortion, denial of life-saving treatment, or rationing of scarce resources follow from the claim that intellectual disability is bad difference. (shrink)

When, if ever, is one justified in accepting the premises of an argument? What is the proper criterion of premise acceptability? Can the criterion be theoretically or philosophically justified? This is the first book to provide a comprehensive theory of premise acceptability and it answers the questions above from an epistemological approach that the author calls common sense foundationalism. It will be eagerly sought out not just by specialists in informal logic, critical thinking, and argumentation theory but also by a (...) broader range of philosophers and those teaching rhetoric. (shrink)

Chapter The Need for a Theory of Argument Structure. THE STANDARD APPROACH The approach to argument diagramming which we call standard was originated, ...

As a concept, affordance is integral to scholarly analysis across multiple fields—including media studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, ecological psychology, and design studies among others. Critics, however, rightly point to the following shortcomings: definitional confusion, a false binary in which artifacts either afford or do not, and failure to account for diverse subject-artifact relations. Addressing these critiques, this article demarcates the mechanisms of affordance—as artifacts request, demand, allow, encourage, discourage, and refuse—which take shape through interrelated conditions: perception, dexterity, (...) and cultural and institutional legitimacy. Together, the mechanisms and conditions constitute a dynamic and structurally situated model that addresses how artifacts afford, for whom and under what circumstances. (shrink)

Is truth a condition of premise adequacy? We may distinguish objective and subjective argument correctness. Objective correctness means true premises rendering the conclusion true or probable. Subjective correctness means acceptable pr emises rendering the conclusion acceptable. Acceptability depends on evidence available and so is internalist. Objective and subjective correctness of the premises is ordinarily distinct. For connection adequacy, objective rightness and subjective righ tness coincide. We recognize entailment or rendering probably a priori. Logic is thus internalist. Logic needs an internalist (...) notion of acceptability for premise evaluation to fall within its purview, although it need not deny the objective sens e of rightness. (shrink)

Where Men Hide is a spirited tour of the dark and often dirty places men go to find comfort, camaraderie, relaxation, and escape. Ken Ross's striking photographs and James B. Twitchell's lively analysis trace the evolution of these virtual caves, and question why they are rapidly disappearing. They find that for centuries men have met with each other in underground lairs and clubhouses to conduct business or to bond and indulge in shady entertainments. In these secret dens, certain rules (...) are abandoned while others are obeyed. Twitchell connects the places men hide with figures like Hemingway and Huck Finn, Frederick Jackson Turner's theory of the American frontier, and the mythological interpretations of Joseph Campbell and Robert Bly. Documenting both traditional and contemporary male haunts, Twitchell and Ross examine the provenance, purpose, and appeal of this little-discussed and controversial phenomenon. (shrink)

Most present-day scholarship on the carceral state, and practically all of the papers and discussion at this conference, involve analysis of the massive increase in prison population over the last 25 years. What has not yet been systematically explored, and what is meant to be the focus of this final panel, is how to decarcerate. This is practically virgin territory. Scholars and activists have hardly begun to create a conversation, much less a literature, on the politics and policy of decarceration. (...) My experience is that most people begin to think about decarceration as a problem in political persuasion. But that begs the questions: who needs persuading and of what? Even passing attention to the issue suggests that there are many possible paths to decarceration; each of them implicates policy choices and triggers its own political debate. (shrink)

This paper draws from the turnover and emotions literatures to explore how job embeddedness, in the context of abusive supervision, can impact job frustration, citizenship withdrawal, and employee deviance. Results indicate that employees with abusive supervisors were more likely to be frustrated with their jobs and engage in more deviance behaviors. And yet, the relationship between abusive supervision and job frustration was moderated by job embeddedness such that the relationship was weaker and negative for those higher in job embeddedness and (...) stronger and positive for those lower in job embeddedness. In other words, contrary to our original predictions, individuals who were more embedded in their jobs with an abusive supervisor were actually less likely to experience job frustration or engage deviance behaviors. Important implications for management research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

It is acknowledged that Francisco Suarez had an excellent knowledge of the Medieval Scholastic tradition. In this project, I focus on one topic, human knowledge of material singulars, to determine Suarez's debt to and freedom from the Scholastic tradition. The representative thinkers of the Medieval tradition that I consider are Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. ;In the first two Chapters, I consider the accounts of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham on the issue of knowledge (...) of singulars. I show that both Scotus and Ockham try to distance themselves from the analysis of indirect knowledge of material singulars presented by Aquinas. Although Scotus retains the notion that the universal nature is the first object of the intellect, his stress on the autonomy of the intellect in its relation to sense cognition paved the way for Ockham. Notably, Ockham rejects any account of knowledge that requires intermediary representational species, and consequently adopts a position that stresses the intellect's ability to know singulars directly via intuitive cognition. ;In the final two Chapters, I discuss in detail Suarez's account of knowledge of material singulars. I show that Suarez accepts Ockham's basic arguments for the priority of knowledge of the singular but at the same time retains the necessity of intelligible species. His account of the relationship between sense cognition and intellectual cognition owes some debt to Scotus, but Suarez accents the theme of the autonomy of the intellect to an extremely high degree. Furthermore, he rejects Ockham's account of intuitive cognition, positing instead a theory of cognition that requires representational species at every step in the cognitive process, both sensory and intellectual. Consequently, Suarez presents us with a highly nuanced and extremely consistent account of knowledge that leaves no explanatory "gaps.". (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

Suppose two persons disagree over whether an act is right, justifying their judgments by appealing to divergent higher-level moral principles. These principles function as backing and rebuttals in their argumentation. To justify these principles, we may argue either that they would be accepted in some ideal model or that they are in reflective equilibrium with our considered moral judgments. Disagreement over the model indicates difference in philosophical anthropology but does not preclude resolution through argument.

On trouve dans les écrits de Descartes trois théories psychologiques : 1° Mécanisme, 2° Interaction, 3° Occasionalisme. La troisième a pour motif de concilier la première et la seconde, mais elle n’y réussit pas du tout. L’interaction est une interprétation des faits empiriques. Le mécanisme est le résultat de la vue rationaliste du monde physique ; il se fonde donc finalement sur la volonté de croire. Dans la maturité de sa pensée, Descartes tend toujours plus vers la théorie de l’Interaction. (...) Les critiques dirigées contre cette théorie ont peu de force, et ce que ces successeurs y ont substitué a peu de rigueur. (shrink)

This study examined how sales managers react to ethical and unethical acts by their salespeople. Deontological considerations and, to a much lesser extent, teleological considerations predicted sales managers' ethical judgments. Sales managers' intentions to reward or discipline ethical or unethical sales force behavior were primarily determined by their ethical judgments. An organization's perceived ethical work climate was not a significant predictor of sales managers' intentions to intervene when ethical and unethical sales force behavior was encountered.

Moral dissensus may arise first because persons may disagree over the warrants licensing inferring an evaluative conclusion from premises asserting that properties alleged evaluatively relevant hold. This results in seeing different properties as evaluatively relevant. Secondly, such properties will frequently not be descriptive but interpretive, asserting some nomic connection. Persons may disagree over what evaluatively relevant properties hold in a given case. We explore the possibilities for argumentation to resolve these two types of disagreement.

Because the mind is the significance of the brain and God is the significance of the mind, the concept “mind” bridges how the brain works and traditional patterns of belief. The left mind, which utilizes rational vigilance and the imperative instructions of proclamation, names and analyzes the urgently right. The right mind, which discloses the relational responsiveness of numinous presence and natural symbolism, is immersed in and integrates the ultimately real. Together they provide a typology of mind‐states with which to (...) assess regressive, functional, and creative patterns. Hand dominance, gender differences, and cultural bias qualify the use of the metaphor. (shrink)

This article surveys the distribution of wealth and its relationship to economic inequality more broadly. It shows that wealth inequality is high and contributes significantly to inequality in income and consumption, although higher wealth inequality is not always an indicator of greater inequality in well-being. In particular, welfare state policies can improve the well-being of low income groups while at the same time reducing their incentive to save. This may lead to high observed wealth inequality in places where it would (...) otherwise not be expected, such as some of the Scandinavian countries. More research is needed to better illuminate such connections between public policy and wealth inequality. (shrink)

FRANCISCO SUÁREZ, THE GREAT JESUIT PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN, has long been recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy. His thought is heavily indebted to the medieval philosophical tradition but also bears striking intimations of key themes in modern thought. In this paper I address one of the most controversial questions related to the thought of Suárez, namely, his relationship to the nominalist tradition. However, I shall do so rather indirectly by focusing not on explicit metaphysical questions (...) but rather on his account of our acquisition of universal concepts and its foundation in reality. By placing questions about the knowledge of singular and universal at the center of the discussion, I hope to shed new light on his account of the objectivity that we can have in our knowledge. (shrink)

Medieval philosophy is the collective name given to the philosophies of thinkers who lived between the end of the Roman Empire, c. 400, and the beginning of the modern era, c. 1490. The philosophers profiled in DLB Volume 115 were involved in education, public life and ecclesiastical administration, and thus represent the various schools of thought that existed throughout this vast period. This volume offers much new information on these scholars, and fills the gap in available literature. The entries, containing (...) biographies, bibliographies and beliefs of the philosophers, reflect the most recent developments in the field. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on three issues in Francisco Suárez’s account of the separated soul: the status of the separated soul as a person, the separated soul’s knowledge of itself, and the question of the soul’s nature both as form of the body and as existing outside the body. I place his discussion in dialogue with St. Thomas Aquinas and Cajetan (Thomas de Vio) and show the ways he departs from those two thinkers. Finally, I show that his account (...) of these problems makes for a philosophically probable account of the resurrection of the body. (shrink)

This chapter talks about the first season of the TV series Veronica Mars. Additionally, the chapter explores the significance of Veronica Mars's photography. Veronica has found her life irrevocably altered in multiple ways. Her best friend, Lilly Kane, was murdered, her father, Keith Mars, lost his job as sheriff as the result of an apparently bungled investigation into Lilly's death, and Veronica lost her social status and former friends. Subsequently her mother, Lianne Mars, left home, apparently unable to deal with (...) the stress of it all. In addition to all this misfortune, Veronica, had attended a party at which she was drugged and then raped. She states in a voiceover, that she is a marshmallow, ironically though. But at the end of the season she has broken through to a new self‐understanding, which is illustrated in the final scene. (shrink)

The most striking observable feature of our indeterministic quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, and scale on which the deterministic laws of classical physics hold to an excellent approximation. This essay describes how this domain of classical predictability of every day experience emerges from a quantum theory of the universe’s state and dynamics.