Este artículo trata del cuerpo humano descrito en la fenomenología de Heidegger. Inicialmente, exponemos el cuerpo visto por las ciencias naturales, que en alemán es expresado por el término Körper, y discutimos la incapacidad de las ciencias naturales para analizar el cuerpo como fenómeno. Luego presentamos el cuerpo humano como fenómeno, que en alemán se denomina Leib, explicamos el gesto como movimiento del cuerpo y explicamos la capacidad de percepción del cuerpo.

«Justiça» é uma ideia central da Bíblia hebraica. O vocabulário diversificado que a exprime não tem correspondência adequada nas línguas ocidentais. Dizia-se com substantivos que se referem à ordem criada, ordenadora das justas relações entre os homens, e ao comportamento justo e recto, conforme a essa ordem. Nos salmos, além da ideia de ordem, indica frequentemente uma acção que se conforma à ordem estabelecida, dando ao outro o que lhe corresponde e restaurando-o na sua devida dignidade. Os profetas foram os (...) paladinos da justiça social e a consciência moral dos dirigentes do povo. Quando exigiam justiça ao povo, não ditavam um código de moral; apontavam a vontade de Deus contemplada pela fé. O conceito de «justiça de Deus» não consiste em que Ele deva algo ao ser humano mas naquilo que Ele se deve a si mesmo em vista do bem que quer para o ser humano. Prolonga a Sua verdade e fidelidade. (shrink)

The elite theory of Max Weber has recently been rediscovered by political scientists and political theorists who have sought to explore both the heuristic and the normative potential of plebiscitary leader democracy. Notwithstanding the merits of this wave of studies, this paper argues that attention should be shifted from Weber's context-specific defence of plebiscitary leadership in post-WWI Germany to his broader conception of charisma as an attempt to grasp the enigma of significant social and political change. Contemporary democratic theory, this (...) paper contends, can fruitfully draw on Weber to sink into the antinomies and ambiguities of a transformative democratic politics. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo do presente trabalho consiste em explicitar o itinerário ou linha argumentativa de Gilles Deleuze no artigo intitulado "A concepção da diferença em Bergson", de 1954. Postula-se que nesse trabalho de 1954, Deleuze exponha a noção de 'diferença', que está presente na obra de Henri Bergson, por meio da relação entre três dimensões: metodológica, cosmológica e ontológica. Para tanto, caracteriza-se o conjunto do pensamento de Deleuze em relação à História da Filosofia. Em seguida, identifica-se o percurso das pesquisas (...) de Deleuze sobre a obra de Bergson no contexto de sua versão para a História da Filosofia. Por fim, explicita-se o itinerário de Deleuze no artigo de 1954: "A concepção da diferença em Bergson". ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explain the itinerary or argumentative line of Gilles Deleuze in the article named "The conception of difference in Bergson" of 1954. It is postulated that in this work of 1954, Deleuze exposes the notion of "difference", which is present in the work of Henri Bergson, through the relation between three dimensions: the methodological, cosmological and ontological ones. For that purpose, the whole of Deleuze's thought in relation to the History of Philosophy is characterized. Then, we identify the course of Deleuze's research on Bergson's work in the context of his version for the History of Philosophy. Finally, we explain the itinerary of Deleuze in the article of 1954: "The conception of difference in Bergson". (shrink)

The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, by Marcel Mauss, is an important reference in Social Sciences for thinking about the theme of the gift, proposed in this congress. This brief work has as goal to present a rereading of The Gift by contemporary authors that try to think today’s society under this perspective. It’s a literature review of books and articles by Allain Caillé, Jacques Godbout and some Brazilian authors: Eric Sabourin, Marcos Lanna, Paulo Henrique Martins (...) and Jorge Luiz Villela. It is important to emphasize, according to Caillé, 1998, that “the paradigm of the gift is not a machine for blowing solutions, but for inspiring questions”. (shrink)

For a long while the dilemma between ‘not being’ and ‘being other’ has haunted the history of Brazil. The country's mixed-race condition lay at the heart of the dilemma which reached its apogee in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. At that point in its history, that is, its emergence as a nation-state, the construction of a national identity became an imperative for the political and intellectual elites of Brazil. In this context, a (...) European, the German naturalist, Carl von Martius, made himself particularly notable for having been one of the first, after Independence, to point out the significance of miscegenation in the composition of Brazilian identity. (shrink)

The ethical issues concerning the use of PGD to select embryos of a particular HLA type are numerous. They arise from the potentially conflicting interests between those of the pre-existing child, the subject of a treatment which may be curative, and those of the sibling to be created, who cannot give consent to the donation, together with the problem of the destruction of potentially healthy embryos. This essay focuses on the web of vulnerabilities affecting the parents, the sick child and (...) the “saviour sibling,” while addressing three areas: science, bioethics and literature. The novel My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, provides the reader with an in-depth view of the conflicting interests and emotional problems that affect the Fitzgeralds, a family experiencing the pain of seeing one of their children dying while facing the tragic consequences of trying to save this child by having another offspring. (shrink)

Culling is used in traditional public health policies to control animal populations. These policies aim primarily to protect human interests but often fail to provide scientific evidence of effectiveness. In this article, we defend the need to move from a strictly anthropocentric approach to disease control towards a One Health ethics, using culling practices as an example. We focus on the recent badger culls in the UK, claiming that, based on data provided by the English Government, these culls may be (...) unjustified, all thing considered. We highlight the relevance of ethical reasoning rooted in One Health for this discussion, and make several suggestions including a moratorium on culling until data are provided to support the effectiveness of culling; to conduct a randomized trial to compare proactive culling with alternative methods; to apply deliberative democratic methods to assess public opinion towards the culls, and to find in Brexit an opportunity for aiming for more effective control measures. (shrink)

The present article intends to approach as its theme the encounter between the religions in the perspective of the hope in Jürgen Moltmann. In the first moment, it is noticed that, due to the serious problems that affect today’s society, there is the necessity of having a cooperation among the different religions, which will only be possible if there is a perspective of change based on hope in the transformation of the current reality Secondly, there is the discussion about the (...) need for a theology of hope that changes our thoughts and builds new perspectives from faith, and that strengthens the collaborative bonds of all those who seek the same ideal of building an alternative world, where justice and peace are its base. A third moment will be based on the following question: from the eschaton, what other world is it possible to build? As a thesis, Moltmann’s thought will be the reason to understand that in the eschaton what unites prevails over what divides, for the urgencies of transformation overcome divergences, being fundamental the perspective of hope as lens from which it is possible a collaborative encounter between religions. (shrink)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70th anniversary is been celebrated in 2018. On the other hand, people are still arguing about the political, juridical, social and civilizational gains it has provided. Such discussions, however, focus on peripheral aspects of Human Rights, losing sight of what could be understood as its highest normative gain. Whenever arguments are not completely rectified, they dissociate from the social demands that actually gave them meaning and relevance. From this scope, the article intends to reconstruct the (...) conceptual and argumentative aspects of Human Rights from the critical theory of relations of justification by Rainer Forst, in which Human Rights are interpreted as arising from a fundamental right to justification. This fundamental right, in Forst’s theory, is interpreted as being part of the “deep grammar” of social conflicts. According to the Forstian theory, we argue for an interpretation of Human Rights capable of encompassing the multiple aspects of these rights, avoiding reductionism and unilateral interpretations of it. This presentation has been divided into three parts. First, it presented some traditional “pictures”, current forms of referring to Human Rights and its characteristics, against which another picture will be proposed, in order to place social conflicts and rejections of injustice as a starting point for the Human Rights. Next, the Forst’s principle of justification and the recursive argument that led toit was discussed. Finally, a critical interpretation of the Forstian proposal, which dealtwith the purposes that his theory is allegedly seeking, was carried out. (shrink)

Metaphors help us understand a concept by resorting to the imaginary because it is sometimes difficult to do so through the use of words alone. Thinkers have made use of metaphors to not only describe ‘falling in love’, ‘the pain of losing someone dear to us’, but also to describe particular concepts both in arts and sciences. In fact, the use of metaphors in some disciplines, particularly the sciences, is now regarded as something essential for the development of the field. (...) We note that influential philosophers of education, such as Martin Buber, Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Gert Biesta and Ilan Gur-Ze’ev have also made use of metaphors to discuss education and specific issues in educational contexts. In this article, we do two things: we discuss the methodological importance of metaphors in helping us make better sense of concepts and particular problems; building on this methodological discussion, we critically discuss the problems posed by the current processes of ‘marketisation’ and ‘learnification’ in education. We conclude by arguing that metaphors do not provide us with ultimate answers to the problems we face; rather, they help us unveil a diversity of novel perspectives and a world of new possibilities. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of a person’s life. Studies 2a–b (...) found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear. (shrink)

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

Presentism: Essential Readings contains writings—classic and contemporary—that acquaint the reader with different versions of presentism, standard philosophical and scientific objections to presentism, and their attempted solutions. Detailed introductions to each part of the book make the discussions accessible to students and those unfamiliar with this fascinating and controversial philosophy.

This article observes the imagination of the end of the world in the Anthropocene era and, at the same time, intends, from an anthropological turn that considers other possibilities of human existence on Earth, to imagine how Amerindian cosmovision can promote not only an ontological but also an epistemological turn in the field of contemporary law and politics. A conflicted but not impossible dialogue between the naturalistic matrix of Western thought and Amerindian multinaturalism, in search of “ideas to postpone the (...) end of the world”. (shrink)

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

In his Art and Illusion, art historian Ernst Gombrich argues that the emergence and development of styles of pictorial representation depend on the availability of certain schemata, which can be documented. He himself documents the schemata responsible for the emergence and development of several styles. Nothing of this kind has been done as far as the growth of scientific knowledge is concerned. In this article we discuss whether is it possible to document something analogous to Gombrich's schemata that can be (...) of crucial relevance for the development of clinical research. (shrink)

This essay addresses the moral nature of corporate social media platforms through the lenses of Axel Honneth’s concept of justice, according to which relations of mutual recognition must be institutionalized into spheres of social freedom to claim a just society. This perspective allows us to observe how platforms configure a symmetrically inverted form of ethical sphere, in which users are led to formulate non-autonomous desires that can only be realized socially. We characterize this as social unfreedom. A just platform ought (...) to be the one in which rights and self-legislation capabilities enable users to have a stake in governing how these digital spaces can be designed to foster the practical realization of users’ autonomous aims, the essay argues. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo geral comentar o estatuto do conhecimento da coisa em si na metafísica de Schopenhauer. De modo mais específico, visa analisar como se inserem neste debate, tradicionalmente enfrentado por estudiosos da filosofia schopenhaueriana como Julian Young, Paul Lauxtermann e David Cartwright, duas correntes interpretativas bastante discutidas neste ciclo, principalmente na última década; ambas lidam com o problema da coisa em si a partir de uma interpretação da transição analógica que Schopenhauer empreende do mundo da representação para (...) o da Vontade. Ao disputarem que tipo de conhecimento, metafórico ou metonímico, esse autor pode almejar da coisa em si, é possível apontar como De Cian e Marco Segala, bem como Jorge Prado, por um lado, e Sandra Shapshay, de outro, se distanciam da tradição exegética que lhes antecede; e, mais ainda, em que medida eles são precursores no esforço de apontar uma espécie de “método” específico, alternativo ao método transcendental kantiano, a partir do qual Schopenhauer realizaria sua empreitada metafísica. A fim de situar nossa própria interpretação entre a desses comentadores, focaremos na análise de passagens de O mundo como vontade e como representação e da Crítica da filosofia kantiana, em que Schopenhauer especifica com mais ênfase como deve ser entendida sua abordagem metafísica. (shrink)

Orphan drug policy often gives ‘special treatment’ to rare diseases, by giving additional priority or making exceptions to specific drugs, based on the rarity of the conditions they aim to treat. This essay argues that the goal of orphan drug policy should be to make prevalence irrelevant to funding decisions. It aims to demonstrate that it is severity, not prevalence, which drives our judgments that important claims are being overlooked when treatments for severe rare diseases are not funded. It shows (...) that prioritising severity avoids problems caused by prioritising rarity, and that it is compatible with a range of normative frameworks. The implications of a severity-based view for drug development are then derived. The severity-based view also accounts for what is wrong with how the current system of drug development unfairly neglects common diseases that burden the developing world. Lastly, the implications of a severity-based view for current orphan drug policies are discussed. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to offer an interpretation about the explanation of the (relative) idea of pure substance in general on John Locke’s philosophy, from Thomas Reid’s notion of ‘natural suggestion’. To achieve this aim, after contextualizing Locke’s notion of pure substance in general and distinguishing it from the idea of particular substance (section 1), we explicit that Locke’s words about the source of the idea of the former in the mind (either empirical or rational) are ambiguous and inconclusive (...) (section 2). Then, we argue that the parallels between this idea and that of ‘relation’, as well as of ‘power’ do not assist in that answer, due to some problems we identify on them (section 3). Finally, we argue that the Reidian explanation for the source of the idea of ‘mind’, from the notion of ‘natural suggestion’ allows us to i) avoid those problems and ii) inasmuch as, according to this interpretation, the idea of pure substance in general would have an empirical source, Lockian empiricism would remain intact (section 4). (shrink)

In theory, a human rights framework should protect and guarantee the equal provision of care and rights of all people. In practice, however, the universality that underlies human rights is enacted through citizenship rights, which rely on the individual politically ‘belonging’ to a nation-state.

Este estudo resulta de uma investigação sobre as aproximações teóricas entre o pensamento de Willard Van Omar Quine e o pragmatismo filosófico de John Dewey. O enfoque desta abordagem é a concepção naturalista e realista de conhecimento desenvolvida por estes dois teóricos. Busca-‑se compreender as conexões conceituais presentes na epistemologia de ambos, sobretudo, as referências de Quine a um empirismo radical e sem dogmas. O critério de análise comparatória será as seguintes teses: a ruptura com a filosofia apriorística, o naturalismo (...) realista, a crítica aos dogmas do empirismo, a defesa do holismo como alternativa à visão tradicional do conhecimento. (shrink)

El artículo deriva de un estudio de caso cualitativo realizado en 2019 que analiza los testimonios de 30 mujeres bolivianas aymara empleadas mayormente en la agricultura o en el comercio agrícola en el valle de Azapa, en las inmediaciones de la ciudad chilena de Arica. Se enfoca específicamente en sus relatos sobre las relaciones de género en sus familias de origen, indagando sobre su impacto (o su vinculación) con los desplazamientos que las mujeres emprenden en sus vidas adultas. El objetivo (...) central es mostrar cómo las relaciones de género en estos entornos familiares ayudaron a configurar los procesos de movilidad transfronteriza femenina y cómo ambos elementos están atravesados por las múltiples desigualdades entre hombres y mujeres en las comunidades de origen de las migrantes. Los marcos conceptuales aplicados a este estudio devienen de dos grandes campos teóricos. Primero, para conceptualizar las relaciones de género y las desigualdades de poder que caracterizan las trayectorias familiares de nuestras entrevistadas en sus localidades de origen, nos apoyamos en las reflexiones antropológicas del feminismo crítico sobre los sistemas de dominación masculina. En segundo lugar, nos apoyamos también en la amplia producción antropológica sobre las asimetrías de género en los grupos sociales aymara, que permiten complementar el marco anterior desde las dimensiones simbólicas y relacionales propias de estos pueblos originarios. (shrink)

We propose a new hybrid data mining method for predicting protein-protein interactions combining Likelihood-Ratio with rule induction algorithms. In essence, the new method consists of using a rule induction algorithm to discover rules representing partitions of the data, and then the discovered rules are interpreted as “bins” which are used to compute likelihood ratios. This new method is applied to the prediction of protein-protein interactions in the Saccharomyces Cerevisiae genome, using predictive genomic features in an integrated scheme. The results show (...) that the new hybrid method outperforms a pure likelihood ratio based approach. (shrink)

ResumoAlguns leitores de Nietzsche podem admitir certa dificuldade em reconhecer os limites entre a crítica, a genealogia e o filosofar com o martelo. Tais limites existem e podem ser delineados se buscarmos o elemento no qual cada uma dessas investidas atua. Este artigo procura elaborar a ideia de que a noção nietzschiana de crítica envolve o desprezo afirmativo, o riso e a zombaria. Ligada, portanto, a uma condição valorativa, a crítica é mais ofensiva, exigente e assumidamente tendenciosa do que se (...) poderia conceber a partir da tradição kantiana.AbstractSome readers of Nietzsche may admit some difficulty in recognizing the boundaries between criticism, genealogy, and philosophizing with the hammer. However, such limits exist if one seek the element that produces each one. This article tries to elaborate the idea that the affirmative contempt, laughter, mockery, for Nietzsche, defines the critic. Related, therefore, to an evaluative (and physiological) condition, criticism is more virulent, offensive, demanding and biased than one might think from a Kantian tradition. (shrink)

Resumo Qual o papel da religião numa sociedade secularizada? Qual o papel da Igreja? O artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre essas questões a partir de um "diálogo virtual" entre o teólogo alemão Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) e o filósofo italiano contemporâneo Gianni Vattimo. Esses dois autores, separados pelo tempo e pela geografia, aproximam-se, no entanto, na forma de pensar o fenômeno da secularização - ambos a entendem como algo intrínseco ao Ocidente cristão. A dissolução do sacro e o movimento em direção (...) à autonomia humana foram percebidos por esses dois pensadores não como ameaças à religião cristã, mas como possibilidades de sua plena realização, concretizada por meio do engajamento social. Diante do fim das certezas e das verdades absolutas - quadro pós-moderno que já se delineava na década de 1940 e ganha contornos mais precisos no princípio do século XXI, tanto Bonhoeffer quanto Vattimo pensaram uma teologia capaz de abrir mão dos pressupostos metafísicos. Palavras-chave: Filosofia; Teologia; Pós-modernidade; Secularização; Eclesiologia.What is the role of religion in a secularized society? What is the role of the Church? This article suggests a reflection on these questions based on a "virtual dialogue" between German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and contemporary Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. Though separated by time and geography, those authors are close to each other in the way they view the secularization phenomenon - both understand it as intrinsic to the Christian West. The dissolution of the sacred and the movement towards human autonomy were perceived by the two thinkers not as threats to the Christian religion, but as possibilities of its full accomplishment, made real by social commitment. Facing the end of certainties and absolute truths - a postmodern framework that starts to take shape in the 1940s and acquires more definite contours in the beginning of the 21st century - Bonhoeffer and Vattimo were able to think a theology capable of giving up its metaphysical presuppositions. Key words: Philosophy; Theology; Postmodernity; Secularization; Ecclesiology. (shrink)

Background Reasonable disagreement about the role awarded to gamete donors in decision-making on the use of embryos created by gamete donation for research purposes emphasises the importance of considering the implementation of participatory, adaptive, and trustworthy policies and guidelines for consent procedures. However, the perspectives of gamete donors and recipients about decision-making regarding research with EGDs are still under-researched, which precludes the development of policies and guidelines informed by evidence. This study seeks to explore the views of donors and recipients (...) about who should take part in consent processes for the use of EGDs in research. Methods From July 2017 to June 2018, 72 gamete donors and 175 recipients completed a self-report structured questionnaire at the Portuguese Public Bank of Gametes. Agreement with dual consent was defined as the belief that the use of EGDs in research should be consented by both donors and recipients. Results The majority of participants were willing to donate embryos for research. Almost half of the donors and half of the recipients considered that a dual consent procedure is desirable. This view was more frequent among employed recipients than among non-employed. Donors were less likely to believe that only recipients should be involved in giving consent for the use of EGDs in research and were more frequently favourable to the idea of exclusive donors’ consent. Conclusions Divergent views on dual consent among donors and recipients indicate the need to develop evidence-based and ethically sustainable policies and guidelines to protect well-being, autonomy and reproductive rights of both stakeholder groups. More empirical research and further theoretical normative analyses are needed to inform people-centred policy and guidelines for shared decision-making concerning the use of EGDs for research. (shrink)

Child poly-victimization is a risk factor for psychopathology in adulthood, such as anxiety and depression. Despite that, there is minus investment regarding psychotic symptoms and the mechanisms explaining the relationship between poly-victimization and psychoticism. The purpose of this study is to investigate these variables and explain how they might be associated. A sample of 246 adults participated in this study, aged between 18 and 68 years (M = 37.5, SD = 12.5) and mostly females (76.8%). The results revealed a significant (...) mediating effect of anxiety and depression in the relationship between childhood victimization and psychoticism (b =.12, p =.011), but not a significant moderating effect of gender, Δχ2(5) = 3.87, p =.568. The affective pathway was supported by our findings. These results suggest the need of additional efforts on prevention of child victimization, as well as of intervention programs aiming to prevent its cumulative effect. (shrink)

The evolution and biodiversity of ageing have long fascinated scientists and the public alike. While mammals, including long‐lived species such as humans, show a marked ageing process, some species of reptiles and amphibians exhibit very slow and even the absence of ageing phenotypes. How can reptiles and other vertebrates age slower than mammals? Herein, I propose that evolving during the rule of the dinosaurs left a lasting legacy in mammals. For over 100 million years when dinosaurs were the dominant predators, (...) mammals were generally small, nocturnal, and short‐lived. My hypothesis is that such a long evolutionary pressure on early mammals for rapid reproduction led to the loss or inactivation of genes and pathways associated with long life. I call this the ‘longevity bottleneck hypothesis’, which is further supported by the absence in mammals of regenerative traits. Although mammals, such as humans, can evolve long lifespans, they do so under constraints dating to the dinosaur era. (shrink)

Despite recent progress in the identification of genes that regulate longevity, aging remains a mysterious process. One influential hypothesis is the idea that the potential for cell division and replacement are important factors in aging. In this work, we review and discuss this perspective in the context of interventions in mammals that appear to accelerate or retard aging. Rather than focus on molecular mechanisms, we interpret results from an integrative biology perspective of how gene products affect cellular functions, which in (...) turn impact on tissues and organisms. We review evidence suggesting that mutations that give rise to features resembling premature aging tend to be associated with cellular phenotypes such as increased apoptosis or premature replicative senescence. In contrast, many interventions in mice that extend lifespan and might delay aging, including caloric restriction, tend to either hinder apoptosis or result in smaller animals and thus may be the product of fewer cell divisions. Therefore, it appears plausible that changes in the number of times that cells, and particularly stem cells, divide during an organism's lifespan influence longevity and aging. We discuss possible mechanisms related to this hypothesis and propose experimental paradigms. BioEssays 30:567–578, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Provocatively, David Armstrong's properties are supposed to be both universals and spatio-temporal. What does this amount to? I consider four of Armstrong's views, in order of ascending plausibility: (1) the exemplification account, on which universals are exemplified by space-times; (2) the location account, on which universals are located at space-times; (3) the first constituent account, on which spatio-temporal relations are elements of what I call the form of time; and, the true view, (4) the second constituent account, on which universals (...) are spatio-temporal only 'derivatively' by being constituents of states of affairs which are so 'primarily'. The first two accounts are rejected because they entail that space-times must be substantival. In making plausible the second constituent account, I distinguish primitive and derivative spatio-temporality. Something is primitively spatio-temporal when it is at a space-time, or stands in spatio-temporal relations. Something is derivatively spatio-temporal when it is a constituent of something primitively spatio-temporal. (shrink)