Conserved upstream open reading frames (uORFs) are found within many eukaryotic transcripts and are known to regulate protein translation. Evidence from genetic and bioinformatic studies implicates disturbed uORF‐mediated translational control in the etiology of human diseases. A genetic mouse model has recently provided proof‐of‐principle support for the physiological relevance of uORF‐mediated translational control in mammals. The targeted disruption of the uORF initiation codon within the transcription factor CCAAT/enhancer binding protein β (C/EBPβ) gene resulted in deregulated C/EBPβ protein isoform expression, associated (...) with defective liver regeneration and impaired osteoclast differentiation. The high prevalence of uORFs in the human transcriptome suggests that intensified search for mutations within 5′ RNA leader regions may reveal a multitude of alterations affecting uORFs, causing pathogenic deregulation of protein expression. (shrink)

\noindent\textbf{Introduction} Online interventions hold great potential for Therapeutic Change Process Research (TCPR), a field that aims to relate in-therapeutic change processes to the outcomes of interventions. Online a client is treated essentially through the language their counsellor uses, therefore the verbal interaction contains many important ingredients that bring about change. TCPR faces two challenges: how to derive meaningful change processes from texts, and secondly, how to assess these complex, varied and multi-layered processes? We advocate the use text mining and multi-level (...) models (MLMs): the former offers tools and methods to discovers patterns in texts; the latter can analyse these change processes as outcomes that vary at multiple levels. \noindent\textbf{Method} We (re-)used the data from \cite{Lamers2015} because it includes outcomes and the complete online intervention for clients with mild depressive symptoms. We used text mining to obtain basic text-variables from e-mails, that we analysed through MLMs. \noindent\textbf{Results} We found that we could relate outcomes of interventions to variables containing text-information. We conclude that we can indeed bridge text mining and MLMs for TCPR as it was possible to relate text-information (obtained through text mining) to multi-levelled TCPR outcomes (using a MLM). \noindent\textbf{Discussion} Text mining can be helpful to obtain change processes, which is also the main challenge for TCPR. We showed how MLMs and text mining can be combined, but our proposition leaves open how to obtain the most relevant textual operationalization of TCPR concepts. That requires interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion. The future does look bright: based on our proof-of-concept study we conclude that MLMs and text mining can indeed advance TCPR. (shrink)

This book presents 18 essays by leading scholars covering mortuary analysis, the archaeology of foraging and agricultural societies, cultural evolution, and archaeological method and theory, which transcend the processual/postprocessual debate in archaeology and provide examples of how archaeologists think about, and go about, studying the past. As archaeology encounters the 21st century, debate over the nature of the discipline dominates professional discourse. Archaeologists are embattled over isms: processualism, postprocessualism, scientism, and humanism are ubiquitous buzzwords in the literature. Yet archaeology is (...) a craft practiced by individuals, learned from and influenced by other individuals. Sometimes a peson, through sheer force of intellectual spirit, rises above the debate to make a mark on the field in ways that cross out schools, paradigms, and factions. It is fitting to look back at the influence one such individual has had on archaeological methods, theory, data collection, and syntheses over the last half century. This volume draws on the experience of students and colleagues who worked with and were strongly influenced by James A. Brown's approach to the past. The volume is divided into five categories, each reflecting one distinctive facet of Brown's affect on archaeology: mortuary analysis, foraging and horticultural societies, complex agriculturalists, proto-historic and historic societies, and method and theory. These diverse categories, with articles by archaeologists of many backgrounds, are drawn together by the threads of Brown's intellectual legacy. Not all authors here are in agreement with Brown's views on their subjects, but all acknolwedge that his work in the area sets a standard that needs to be met if one is to succeed. (shrink)

A superb compilation that explores the history, major topics, and controversies in philosophical work on friendship. It gives an overview and in-depth exploration of the connections between friendship and the history of philosophy, morality, practical rationality, value theory, and interpersonal relationships more generally.

Recent work in cognitive psychology and experimental semantics indicates that people do not categorize natural kinds solely by virtue of their purported scientific essence. Two attempts have been made to explain away the data by appealing to the idea that participants in these studies are reasoning diagnostically. I will argue that an appeal to diagnostic reasoning will likely not help to explain away the data.

This book provides answers to both normative and metaethical questions in a way that shows the interconnection of both types of questions, and also shows how a complete theory of reasons can be developed by moving back and forth between the two types of questions. It offers an account of the nature of intimate relationships and of the nature of the reasons that intimacy provides, and then uses that account to defend a traditional intuitionist metaethics. The book thus combines attention (...) to the details of the lived moral life – the context in which many of our most pressing moral questions arise, how we deliberate and make moral decisions, the complexities that plague our attempts to know what we ought to do – with theoretical rigor in offering an account of the nature of reasons, how we come to have moral knowledge, and how we can adjudicate between competing positions. (shrink)

The two dominant contemporary moral theories, Kantianism and utilitarianism, have difficulty accommodating our commonsense understanding of friendship as a relationship with significant moral implications. The difficulty seems to arise from their underlying commitment to impartiality, to the claim that all persons are equally worthy of concern. Aristotelian accounts of friendship are partialist in so far as they defend certain types of friendship by appeal to the claim that some persons, the virtuous, are in fact more worthy of concern than are (...) other persons. This article argues that we can preserve the underlying impartiality of Kantianism and utilitarianism, while also preserving a certain partiality with respect to our friends: the partiality of commonsense only seems objectionable if we fail to understand the true grounds, nature, and implications of such partiality. Neo-Aristotelian partiality should be rejected in favor of commonsense partiality. (shrink)

The two dominant contemporary moral theories, Kantianism and utilitarianism, have difficulty accommodating our commonsense understanding of friendship as a relationship with significant moral implications. The difficulty seems to arise from their underlying commitment to impartiality, to the claim that all persons are equally worthy of concern. Aristotelian accounts of friendship are partialist in so far as they defend certain types of friendship by appeal to the claim that some persons, the virtuous, are in fact more worthy of concern than are (...) other persons. This article argues that we can preserve the underlying impartiality of Kantianism and utilitarianism, while also preserving a certain partiality with respect to our friends: the partiality of commonsense only seems objectionable if we fail to understand the true grounds, nature, and implications of such partiality. Neo-Aristotelian partiality should be rejected in favor of commonsense partiality. (shrink)

_Philosophy Through Film_ offers a uniquely engaging and effective approach to introductory philosophy by combining an anthology of classical and contemporary philosophical readings with a discussion of philosophical concepts illustrated in popular films. Pairs 50 classical and contemporary readings with popular films - from Monty Python and _The Matrix_ to _Casablanca_ and _A Clockwork Orange_ Addresses key areas in philosophy, including topics in ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, free will and determinism, the problem of perception, and philosophy of (...) time Each unit begins with an extensive introduction by the editors and ends with study questions linking readings to films Features chapter by chapter discussion of clips from films that vividly illustrate the critical philosophical arguments and positions raised in the readings. (shrink)

Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is a harm reduction approach for persons who wish to stop using opioids and is rather effective if used for a minimum of 12 months. Notably, research demonstrates that many persons enrolled in MMT programs discontinue care before this time, limiting its effects. To better understand this process, we undertook an exploratory descriptive qualitative study and interviewed 12 men and women who were using MMT. Using the theoretical work of Foucault and Hardt and Negri, the interview (...) data highlighted that MMT continues to be strongly stigmatized, and that it is a system of care that involves rewards and penalties, based on if patients behave according to prescribed norms. These results suggest that MMT is a disciplinary mechanism, albeit one that impedes its own access. We consequently recommend that healthcare providers work to facilitate access to MMT, which means altering care delivery. (shrink)

Most of us accept that we have special obligations to our family members: to, e.g., our parents, our siblings, and our grandparents. But it is extremely difficult to offer a plausible grounding for such obligations, given the apparent fact that familial relationships are not voluntarily entered. I did not choose to be my mother's daughter or my brother's sister, so why suppose that such facts about me are morally significant? Why suppose that I owe more to my mother or to (...) my brother than natural duty requires that I do for all and any persons? Special obligations appear more problematic the less the relationships that supposedly generate them are akin to the relationship between promiser and promisee, a voluntarily assumed relationship. Thus, for example, special obligations to friends might appear less problematic than do those to family members, because it seems that we voluntarily choose our friends, and, thus, voluntarily choose to bear more for them than natural duty requires. (shrink)

Recent experimental studies have claimed to find evidence for the view that natural kind terms such as “water” are ambiguous: that they have two extensions, one determined by superficial properties, the other by underlying essence. In an online experiment, we presented to 600 participants scenarios describing discoveries of novel samples that differ in deep structure from samples of a familiar kind but are superficially identical, such as a water-like substance that is not composed of H2O. We used three different types (...) of question sets to probe whether the participants considered the sample as a member of the kind or not. Our results did not confirm the predictions of the ambiguity view. They were, rather, consistent with views that take underlying essences to be the sole criterion for membership in a natural kind. (shrink)

Samuel Scheffler has identified two important objections to associative obligations, the voluntarist objection and the distributivist objection. The voluntarist is concerned about protecting the autonomy of the agent who is supposed to have associative obligations. However, the appropriate account of the source of associative obligations reveals that they pose no threat to autonomy, if we understand autonomy in a weak rather than a strong sense. The distributivist is worried about the claims of outsiders being ignored as the result of insiders (...) having associative obligations to one another. This objection loses much of its force when we understand the genuine implications of associative obligations. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

'Johann Sommerville's is an impeccable textbook. Simply written, it provides exposition of Hobbes' arguments in the context of English and continental thought'. P. Springborg, University of Sydney, Political Studies, Vol. XL1, No 2 6/93 Thomas Hobbes was probably the greatest of British political theorists. Too often commentators have failed to grasp his meaning because they have ignored the historical context in which he wrote. Drawing on much recent scholarship and on many little-known seventeenth century sources, this book presents a lucid (...) and jargon-free examination of Hobbes' arguments, setting them against a background of the ideas of his contemporaries and of the political events of his lifetime. By viewing Hobbes in his context, the book both clarifies his theories and illuminates European thinking at a critical stage in the development of modern political ideas. (shrink)

Reasons of intimacy, i.e. reasons to care for friends and other intimates, resist categorization as either subjective Humean reasons or as objective consequentialist reasons. Reasons of intimacy are grounded in the friendship relation itself, not in the psychological attitudes of the agent or in the objective intrinsic value of the friend or the friendship. So reasons of intimacy are objective and agent-relative and can be understood by analogy with reasons of fidelity and reasons of prudence. Such an analogy can help (...) us to understand which objective agent-relative reasons we have and which, such as deontological constraints, we do not have. (shrink)

An important part of friendships are the so-called special obligations generated by them. Friends owe things to each other that they do not owe to strangers. While such special obligations are an important part of our everyday practice, they raise several philosophical questions. These questions include the status of special obligations (are such obligations sui generis or is it possible to reduce them to general moral principles?), the source of such special obligations (what grounds special obligations of friendship?), and the (...) content of special obligations (what is the content of special obligations of friendship?). This chapter gives an overview of some of the most important positions in the literature with regard to these questions. (shrink)

Philosophers who, in the light of these attacks, have attempted to vindicate the motive of duty have done so in a half-hearted way, by stressing the motive of duty’s function as a secondary or limiting motivation, or by denying “that acting from duty primarily concerns isolated actions.” I will defend duty as a primary motive with respect to isolated actions. Critics of acting from duty and philosophers who have attempted to respond to them have done little work spelling out exactly (...) what it is for an agent to act from duty. To act explicitly on moral principle is to act from a type of concern for persons that is no less morally good than concern expressed in direct emotional responses. Concern mediated by moral principles is, in certain ways, morally superior to that expressed in direct emotional responses, even when the object of concern is an intimate such as a friend or loved one. (shrink)

Reasons of intimacy, i.e. reasons to care for friends and other intimates, resist categorization as either subjective Humean reasons or as objective consequentialist reasons. Reasons of intimacy are grounded in the friendship relation itself. not in the psychological attitudes of the agent or in the objective intrinsic value of the friend or the friendship. So reasons of intimacy are objective and agent‐relative and can be understood by analogy with reasons of fidelity and reasons of prudence. Such an analogy can help (...) us to understand which objective agent‐relative reasons we have and which, such as deontological constraints, we do not have. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift versammelt Texte zu den vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen von Alfred Schmidt, emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Soziologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Die philosophiehistorischen Betrachtungen versuchen jeweils, das Konzept eines realen Humanismus ins Bewusstsein gegenwärtiger praktischer Philosophie zu rufen. Verbindendes Motiv der Beiträge ist dabei ein kritisch verstandener Materialismus, der ohne weltanschauliche Versicherungen auskommt und den leibhaftigen Menschen in den Fokus der Betrachtung rückt. So verstandene Gesellschaftskritik orientiert sich an Gewährsmännern Kritischer Theorie wie etwa Hegel und Marx sowie Schopenhauer, (...) Nietzsche und Freud. Charakteristisch für die hier versammelten Texte ist unter anderem, dass sie eine subjektgerechte Einrichtung der Welt einfordern. (shrink)

Diese Festschrift versammelt Texte zu den vielfältigen Forschungsinteressen von Alfred Schmidt, emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Soziologie an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Die philosophiehistorischen Betrachtungen versuchen jeweils, das Konzept eines realen Humanismus ins Bewusstsein gegenwärtiger praktischer Philosophie zu rufen. Verbindendes Motiv der Beiträge ist dabei ein kritisch verstandener Materialismus, der ohne weltanschauliche Versicherungen auskommt und den leibhaftigen Menschen in den Fokus der Betrachtung rückt. So verstandene Gesellschaftskritik orientiert sich an Gewährsmännern Kritischer Theorie wie etwa Hegel und Marx sowie Schopenhauer, (...) Nietzsche und Freud. Charakteristisch für die hier versammelten Texte ist unter anderem, dass sie eine subjektgerechte Einrichtung der Welt einfordern. (shrink)

Situado no norte da África durante a antiguidade tardia, o pensamento político de Santo Agostinho não está sistematizado em um conjunto teórico de obras. É fruto de sua reflexão sobre problemas concretos como a legitimidade de intervenção estatal em querelas religiosas como o conflito entre católicos e donatistas. A visão agostiniana de Estado prevê um engajamento do cristão na esfera política, não no sentido da teocracia medieval, mas tendo em vista sua purificação moral. Acredita que ele deva intervir na esfera (...) privada da fé para evitar a violência extrema, mas não crê que suas instituições possam ser justas se não orientadas pela verdadeira piedade da fé cristã. Para Agostinho uma das razões para a decadência social de Roma é sua crença em falsas narrativas que não levaram os cidadãos a um crescimento moral autêntico, no que em sua visão a Igreja pode e deve colaborar com o Estado. (shrink)

RESUMO: Na reflexão que desenvolve nos textos do primeiro decênio de sua obra Agostinho mantém um princípio teleológico forte, a saber, que o grande motivo que leva o homem a filosofar e buscar a compreensão da Verdade é o desejo de ser feliz, isto é, encontrar a Beatitude que ele identifica com a condição de estar plenamente em Deus, fim último a ser buscado pelo homem. Este fim só é atingido por quem compreende a Verdade com a reta razão e (...) vive a virtude com reta vontade. Trata-se de um processo cognitivo e volitivo onde a ação humana precisa estar em conformidade com uma realidade transcendente, exterior à natureza criada, que lhe está na condição de um mandato de ação. Neste ponto percebemos a presença de um elemento deontológico forte já nesta fase de seu pensamento, o qual não esvazia sua ampla reflexão acerca da liberdade humana, mas a situa no contexto da teodiceia que justifica sua moral religiosa. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aristotelianism of Locke's PoliticsJ. S. MaloyThose, then, who think that the positions of statesman, king, household manager, and master of slaves are the same are not correct. For they hold that each of these differs not innly in whether the subjects ruled are few or many... the assumption being that there is no difference between a large household and a small city-state.... But these claims are not true.Aristotle, (...) Politics, 1252a1The Power of a Magistrate over a Subject may be distinguished from that of a Father over his Children, a Master over his Servant, a Husband over his Wife, and a Lord over his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimes together in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, it may help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and a Captain of a Galley.Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 2.22 [End Page 235]When the political theory of John Locke first appeared in print in 1689, the imposing authority of Aristotle stood ready to defeat it. So believed many of Locke's critics, at any rate. After his death in 1704, when it was confirmed that the internationally renowned author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding had also written the anonymously published Two Treatises of Government, Locke was widely taken to represent a distinctive type of political theory based on individual rights and the social contract. Learned opposition to this sort of voluntaristic account of politics has often rested on Aristotle, "the Philosopher," the ancient authority on the human instinct for sociability and the hierarchal communities arising therefrom. Within the modern academy "liberals," "communitarians," and "republicans" have again made a habit of pronouncing the names of Locke and Aristotle in tones of antagonism. In broad outline the reasons have not changed in two or three centuries ago: the first stands for natural-rights individualism and the second for an organic conception of community.3What are we to make of this conventional opposition in light of the awkward fact that the second of Locke's Two Treatises, "Of Civil Government," takes the reclamation of the Aristotelian conception of political power as its principal purpose? Locke announced in the opening chapter of that essay that his chief target, Robert Filmer, had misunderstood the nature of distinctively political relationships, mainly by ignoring the differences between authority in political society and authority within the family (L 2.1–2). Locke alleged that this basic conceptual mistake of the Filmerian theory of "absolute" and "arbitrary" government was the source of its disastrous practical ramifications, which he had summed up in the first Treatise as "Chains for all Mankind" (L 1.1). Filmer, in turn, had taken Plato's side in the debate about political and familial rule which Aristotle had joined in the opening lines of his Politics (A 1252a). Though a perceptive reader long ago noticed the Aristotelianism of Locke's response to Filmer—Locke and Algernon Sidney were the "two famous men" to whom Rousseau alluded as having defended Aristotle against Filmer's Platonic notions of power—no modern scholar has attempted a full explanation of the significance of Locke's intervention in this debate.4 [End Page 236]The analysis below will show that Aristotle was the classic source for both the principal theoretic argument of Locke's second Treatise and the method employed to pursue it, i.e. using analogies of power for conceptual comparison and distinction. But my argument for the Aristotelianism of Locke's politics will rest on contextual as well as textual grounds. Not only was Locke pursuing an evident variation on the central theme of bk. 1 of Aristotle's Politics; he was far from alone in doing so. This sort of project was by the 1680s typical of radical constitutionalist writing in Europe, including not only English Whigs like Sidney and James Tyrrell but also a long line of writers on both sides of the English Channel, stretching back at least a century, who deployed a particular interpretation of Aristotle in the service... (shrink)

Friendship is regarded as crucial to living a good life. But how does friendship make our lives better? Do all friendships make our lives better? What sorts of interactions are necessary for maintaining valuable friendships? This book answers these questions via a philosophical exploration of friendship and the ways that it contributes value to our lives. Diane Jeske uses this philosophical analysis to assess the impact of our ever-growing use of social media: Do interactions via social media interfere with (...) our ability to maintain genuine friendships? Do such interactions undermine the contribution of friendship to the value of our lives? In addressing these topics, Jeske examines the contemporary notion of a ¿frenemy,¿ the ways in which we deliberately craft our social media personas, the role of the physical body in friendship, and the ways in which social media¿s exacerbation of our fear of being left out and of comparison-based envy can impact our relationships. Written in a clear and engaging style, Friendship and Social Media brings philosophical rigor and clarity to the task of determining how we can responsibly use social media in our own lives. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the ethics of interpersonal relationships and the social impact of technology. (shrink)

Slave-holders, Nazis, and psychopaths are indisputably bad people. But the ways in which they attempt to justify their actions provide uncomfortable parallels with our own moral deliberations. Moral philosophy provides tools for examining and evaluating our moral deliberations, and so serve an important function in moral education.

Anthropologists have long documented rituals that reinforce the social and spiritual aspects of killing and eating animals. The historical processes of modernization, industrialization, and the spread of market capitalism have driven many such references to sacredness out of meat production in North America, leading dominant social relations around meat into what Max Weber famously termed “disenchantment.” In this article, I argue that re-enchanting discourses are one technique being used to develop the alternative production models of ethically raised meat—animals raised for (...) human consumption with priority on sustainability and well-being. As people redesign a food system that resists the meat industry’s churn of pigs, cows, and chickens from feed lot to factory, they are not just rearranging the material structures of production. They also foster discourses and practices of sacredness, mutuality, and wonder. Ethical meat advocates use these discourses particularly to make sense of conflicts regarding the non-commodifiable nature of mortality and harmony. This article draws on ethnographic research among Southern Wisconsin butchers, farmers, and customers as well as public discourse analysis to trace meaning-making strategies that powerfully counter the commercial meat industry by re-enchanting meat. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected], Second and Other Selves: Essays on Friendship and Personal Identity is a collection of previously published articles by Jennifer Whiting. In the preface to this volume, Whiting states that this is the first of three volumes, which will include her essays published between 1980 and 2011. Whiting is a highly respected scholar of Aristotle’s ethics, but she indicates (...) that articles focused on interpretations of Aristotle’s ethical thought will be found primarily in the forthcoming second and third volumes. In the Introduction, Whiting explains the three themes that she takes to unify the essays in this first volume: psychic contingency, friendship and the rejection of rational egoism.Before saying more about the topics... (shrink)

Friendship and other intimate relationships have created difficulties for moral philosophers. While morality seems to require us to remain impartial between persons, friendship seems to generate demands or obligations of partiality toward our intimates. But the difficulty can be removed once we cease to focus on categorizing reasons as moral or non-moral. This tendency to divide reasons into categories of moral vs. non-moral leads us to give those that we label ‘moral’ pride of place and to assume that the category (...) must be uniform. If we abandon these assumptions, then reasons of intimacy or friendship will no longer be so puzzling. We will then be able to see that all reasons, in the end, are importantly egocentric, and that deliberation must always proceed from an egocentric perspective. (shrink)

In recent years, more and more philosophical work has come to be done under the rubric of ‘feminist philosophy.’ In particular, more and more work in philosophical ethics has come to be identified by both those who produce it and those who read it as within the domain of ‘feminist ethics.’ As a philosophical ethicist and a feminist, the question naturally arises as to whether I do feminist ethics. The question seems particularly natural in my case, because a great deal (...) of my research has focussed on the nature of intimate relationships, the types of reasons to which such relationships give rise, and how moral theory ought to accommodate such relationships and their attendant reasons. Intimacy, after all, has been one of the areas to which feminist ethicists have paid a great deal of attention in their attempts to carve out a peculiarly’ feminist’ ethics, arguing that traditional or canonical theories need, at the very least, a great deal of revision if they are to respond appropriately to the ‘data’ acquired as the result of the inclusion and responsiveness to the experience of women. (shrink)