The Critique of Scholastic Language in Renaissance Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy

This article studies some key moments in the long tradition of the critiqueof scholastic language, voiced by humanists and early-modern philosophers alike. It aims at showing how the humanist idiom of “linguistic usage,” “convention,” “custom,” “common” and “natural” language, and “everyday speech” was repeated and put to new use by early-modern philosophers in their own critique of scholastic language. Focusing on Valla, Vives, Sanches, Gassendi, Hobbes, and Leibniz, the article shows that all these thinkers shared a conviction that scholastic language, at least in its more baroque forms, was artificial, unnatural, uninformative, ungrammatical, and quasi-precise. The scholastics were accused of having introduced a terminology that was a far cry from the common language people spoke, wrote, and read. But what was meant by “common language” and such notions? They were not so easy to define. For the humanists, it meant the Latin of the great classical authors, but this position, as the article suggests, had its tensions. In the later period it became even more difficult to give positive substance to these notions, as the world became, linguistically speaking, increasingly more pluralistic. Yet the attack on scholasticlanguage continued to be conducted in these terms. The article concludes that the long road of what we may call the democratization of philosophical language, so dear to early-modern philosophers, had its roots – ironically perhaps – in the humanist return to classical Latin as the common language

Spinoza, Baruch

Spinoza’s philosophy radically changed the framework of western thought duringmodernity, and had huge consequences for its development from the 17th centuryonwards. Drawing on different traditions of thought, he created a system of philosophywhich challenged the views of his contemporary readers in almost every domain. Fromhis metaphysics to his epistemology, from his account of morals to his political theory,from his method of interpreting Scripture, to the method of exposition that he employedin his main work—namely, the Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (1677)—, there isnot a single aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy which has not been thoroughly examined anddiscussed. Yet, Spinoza’s theses and arguments continue to influence philosophicaldebates. Spinoza’s so called substance monism, his identification of God with nature, hisstrict necessitarianism, his unique account of the mind-body relationship and of humanaffects, his passionate defence of religious freedom and of freedom of thought are still asource of inspiration for many thinkers and the focus of several studies, not necessarilyrelated to the limited domain of the historiography of philosophy.<br/

Modelling CO₂ and CH₄ emissions from drained peatlands with grass cultivation by the BASGRA-BGC model

Abstract Cultivated peatlands under drainage practices contribute significant carbon losses from agricultural sector in the Nordic countries. In this research, we developed the BASGRA-BGC model coupled with hydrological, soil carbon decomposition and methane modules to simulate the dynamic of water table level (WTL), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emissions for cultivated peatlands. The field measurements from four experimental sites in Finland, Denmark and Norway were used to validate the predictive skills of this novel model under different WTL management practices, climatic conditions and soil properties. Compared with daily observations, the model performed well in terms of RMSE (Root Mean Square Error; 0.06–0.11 m, 1.22–2.43 gC/m²/day, and 0.002–0.330 kgC/ha/day for WTL, CO₂ and CH₄, respectively), NRMSE (Normalized Root Mean Square Error; 10.3–18.3%, 13.0–18.6%, 15.3–21.9%) and Pearson's r (Pearson correlation coefficient; 0.60–0.91, 0.76–0.88, 0.33–0.80). The daily/seasonal variabilities were therefore captured and the aggregated results corresponded well with annual estimations. We further provided an example on the model's potential use in improving the WTL management to mitigate CO₂ and CH₄ emissions while maintaining grass production. At all study sites, the simulated WTLs and carbon decomposition rates showed a significant negative correlation. Therefore, controlling WTL could effectively reduce carbon losses. However, given the highly diverse carbon decomposition rates within individual WTLs, adding indicators (e.g. soil moisture and peat quality) would improve our capacity to assess the effectiveness of specific mitigation practices such as WTL control and rewetting

Effect of Antibiotics and Diet on Enterolactone Concentration and Metabolome Studied by Targeted and Nontargeted LC–MS Metabolomics

High plant lignan intake is associated with a number of health benefits, possibly induced by the lignan metabolite enterolactone (ENL). The gut microbiota plays a crucial role in converting dietary lignans into ENL, and epidemiological studies have shown that use of antibiotics is associated with lower levels of ENL. Here we investigate the link between antibiotic use and lignan metabolism in pigs using LC–MS/MS. The effect of lignan intake and antibiotic use on the gut microbial community and the pig metabolome is studied by 16S rRNA sequencing and nontargeted LC–MS. Treatment with antibiotics resulted in substantially lower concentrations of ENL compared with concentrations detected in untreated animals, whereas the plasma concentrations of plant lignans were unchanged. Both diet and antibiotic treatment affected the clustering of urinary metabolites and significantly altered the proportions of taxa in the gut microbiota. Diet, but not antibiotic treatment, affected the plasma lipid profile, and a lower concentration of LDL cholesterol was observed in the pigs fed a high lignan diet. This study provides solid support for the associations between ENL concentrations and use of antibiotics found in humans and indicates that the lower ENL concentration may be a consequence of the ecological changes in the microbiota