Ancient Greek Psychology and the Modern Mind-Body Debate, 2nd Edition

Ancient Greek Psychology and the Modern Mind-Body Debate offers an overview of Platonic-Aristotelian thought on man with a view to considering what its alternative conceptual framework may contribute to the modern debate which is dominated by the scepticism confronting modern reductionism. The mind-body problem is central to the modern philosophical and cultural debate because we cannot understand what man is until we understand what consciousness is and how it interacts with the body. Although many suggestions have been offered, no convincing account has as yet appeared. Perhaps it was all mistaken ideology from the start? A crucial (and fatal?) distinction was made by modern natural science in the 17th century between the subjective/qualitative and the objective/quantitative. The ancient Greeks, notably Plato and Aristotle, focused not on consciousness and experience, but on goal-directed reason/form, and the contrast was not mechanical matter, but the particular. The latter owed its intelligibility and being to reason and form and did not, therefore, constitute a realm of its own. Hence the ancient picture of man did not fall apart either: the soul is conceived of as a dynamic-telic aspect of the human organism. Considering the problems and consequent scepticism that confronts modern reductionism and the recent appearance of holistic ideology in many areas it is suggested that we take a fresh look at the alternative conceptual framework of our ancient Greek ancestors

Human Wisdom, Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy

This book offers inter alia a systematic investigation of the actual argumentative strategy of Socratic conversation and explorations of Socratic and Platonic morality including an examination ofeudaimonia and the mental conception of health in the Republic as self-control, with a view to the relation of individual health/happiness to social order. The essays cover a period from 1968 to 2012. Some of them are now published for the first time. Self-motion in the later dialogues involves tripartition and tripartition in turn involves embodiment. The Philebus psychology too anticipates Aristotle. The Forms of the Timaeus are patterns, but the two-world picture is abandoned: there is one world constituted by Forms and Place. The Epinomis is arguably genuine. More generally, denying that Plato develops, e.g. exegetically and psychologically, is absurd. There are too many contradictions in the Corpus. The dialogues are artistic wholes and the author's message must be interpreted accordingly: hence in a sense every character is Plato's mouthpiece. Aristotle's idea of the human good or quality of life as optimal mental activity according to the special human capabilities is the root of the modern selfactualization projects. Panaetius (free reason) and Posidonius (science) mark the end of the older Stoa's hard-core materialism and the beginning of a new more 'modern' era

Official Historiography, Political Legitimacy, Historical Methodology, and Royal and Imperial Authority in Spain under Phillip II, 1580-99

Between 1580 and 1599, Spain was the subject of a barrage of foreign polemical attacks, a reaction to Spain's European hegemony under Philip II. These attacks used historical arguments to directly challenge Spain's political legitimacy and power, its reputation, and its political standing within Europe by criticizing Spain's dynastic arguments for empire, and denigrated Spanish imperialism and the nature of Spanish rule, threatening constitutional structures by claiming that Philip ruled as a tyrant. In response to these attacks, a coterie of scholars and powerful political advisors, seeking to solidify claims to certain territories and to justify imperial actions, developed innovative historical writing practices that were effective ideological tools for creating support for new political ideas. To convincingly defend Spanish imperialism and restore Spanish reputación, official history needed to concern itself with questions of statecraft, and to do so within the framework of humanist notions of "good" history. Specifically, the new type of historical writing used humanist and antiquarian methodologies, especially an emphasis on source-based documentation of arguments and claims, and combined these with reason of state politics to respond to European challenges to Spanish imperial authority and Spanish actions in Portugal and France by ensuring that only a very specific image of the king was conveyed, and very specific sources were utilized and revealed. In doing so, official historians, most notably Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Esteban de Garibay, and Gregorio López de Madera, and advisors, like Juan de Idiáquez and Cristóbal de Moura, turned to the writing of history not as a means to reform the state, but instead as a potent means to bolster and defend the existing state's identity and advance its purpose. This dissertation uses court correspondence, the treatises on the artes historicae written by the court historians, and the innovative official histories they produced to show how the tensions between ideology and methodology played out in this new form of official history, and how theory and practice came together in the service of power. Through its use of multiple sources of data, this study shows that it was due to the polemical context, not despite it, that a new and more powerful history emerged, which included new practices and cultivated a more critical sensibility. Official history came to play a role in giving conceptual identity and political legitimacy to Spain's imperial ambitions in a new reason of state context. Thus, notions of rule (Spanish Christian reason of state) and provisions of proof became the two pivots upon which Spanish imperial ambitions were justified, and larger debates about how to legitimize formal rights and privileges found a concrete form of expression in official history

Extrolites of <i>Aspergillus fumigatus</i> and Other Pathogenic Species in <i>Aspergillus </i>Section <i>Fumigati</i>

Aspergillus fumigatus is an important opportunistic human pathogen known for its production of a large array of extrolites. Up to 63 species have been described in Aspergillus section Fumigati, some of which have also been reliably reported to be pathogenic, including A. felis, A. fischeri, A. fumigatiaffinis, A. fumisynnematus, A. hiratsukae, A. laciniosus, A. lentulus, A. novofumigatus, A. parafelis, A. pseudofelis, A. pseudoviridinutans, A. spinosus, A. thermomutatus, and A. udagawae. These species share the production of hydrophobins, melanins, and siderophores and ability to grow well at 37°C, but they only share some small molecule extrolites, that could be important factors in pathogenicity. According to the literature gliotoxin and other exometabolites can be contributing factors to pathogenicity, but these exometabolites are apparently not produced by all pathogenic species. It is our hypothesis that species unable to produce some of these metabolites can produce proxy-exometabolites that may serve the same function. We tabulate all exometabolites reported from species in Aspergillus section Fumigati and by comparing the profile of those extrolites, suggest that those producing many different kinds of exometabolites are potential opportunistic pathogens. The exometabolite data also suggest that the profile of exometabolites are highly specific and can be used for identification of these closely related species

Real Space Observations of Magnesium Hydride Formation and Decomposition

The mechanisms of magnesium hydride formation and thermal decomposition are directly examined using in-situ imaging.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

The importance of mass spectrometric dereplication in fungal secondary metabolite analysis

Having entered the Genomic Era, it is now evident that the biosynthetic potential of filamentous fungi is much larger than was thought even a decade ago. Fungi harbor many cryptic gene clusters encoding for the biosynthesis of polyketides, non-ribosomal peptides, and terpenoids – which can all undergo extensive modifications by tailoring enzymes – thus potentially providing a large array of products from a single pathway. Elucidating the full chemical profile of a fungal species is a challenging exercise, even with elemental composition provided by high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) used in combination with chemical databases (e.g. Antibase) to dereplicate known compounds. This has led to a continuous effort to improve chromatographic separation in conjunction with improvement in HRMS detection. Major improvements have also occurred with 2D chromatography, ion-mobility, MS/MS and MS3, stable isotope labeling feeding experiments, classic UV/Vis, and especially automated data-mining and metabolomics software approaches as the sheer amount of data generated is now the major challenge. This review will focus on the development and implementation of dereplication strategies and will highlight the importance of each stage of the process from sample preparation to chromatographic separation and finally towards both manual and more targeted methods for automated dereplication of fungal natural products using state-of-the art MS instrumentation