68 research outputs found
An Assessment of Spatial Variation in Surface Water Dependence Among Selected Savanna Ungulates During the Wet Season in Serengeti National Park.
Water uptake by savanna ungulate species can be enhanced by drinking surface water, food intake or metabolism. However, the savanna ungulate species differ in terms of water dependence in the wet season and have less been studied and not well known. In any attempt to address the problem, it involved working on three objectives namely; examine the species differentials in dung moisture content in savanna ungulates, determine the spatial variation in dung moisture content between savanna ungulates in the zones and assess the relationship between dung moisture content and the distance to permanent water source. In this study we collected fecal samples from six savanna ungulates species of buffalo, zebra, eland, hartebeest, warthog and Thomsonâs gazelle in three different habitats related to water availability in the northern, central and southern zones of Serengeti National Park. In quantifying the net weights, it showed significant variations in the mean percentages in dung moisture content. The maximum mean percentage in dung moisture content was observed in buffalo which ranked the highest indicating water dependence whereas the minimum one was observed in Thomsonâs gazelle which ranked the lowest depicting less water dependence. The statistical tests revealed that, the central and southern zones indicated high variations in the availability of quality surface water. However, the relationship between moisture contents for savanna ungulates and distances to permanent water sources could not significantly affect the moisture content for the studied species.
Keywords: surface water, dependence, savanna ungulates, moisture contents, wet seaso
Cartesius Verus Spinozismi Architectus. Sive Uberior Assertio & Vindicatio Tractatus, cui titulus Cartesius Spinozae praelucens, antehac vernaculo sermone editi
Tres medici, duo athei? The Physician as Atheist and the Medicalization of the Soul
Until recently, examinations of the âmind-body problemâ in historical context paid only cursory attention to its specifically medical dimension, if at all. At best, some âfolk physiologyâ was entertained, usually to laugh at it (the pineal gland, animal spirits). Conversely, historians of neuroscience or of artificial intelligence (Jeannerod 1985, Dupuy 2000) often present figures like La Mettrie as heroic early cases of ânaturalizationâ, giving an experimental basis to materialism: their symmetrically inverse mistake is to take professions of medical authority too literally (although there are genuine cases where all of the above does coalesce â where âactorsâ categories mysteriously transcend historiographic projections â, such as Hieronymus Gaubâs reflections on the âregimen of the mindâ in the mid-eighteenth century, or, more theoretically, Guillaume Lamyâs Epicurean-inflected Anatomical Discourses on the Soul, eighty years earlier). Contrary to the denial of the relevance of medicine in early modern philosophy, as regards issues such as the body-soul (then body-mind) relation among others, it seems patently difficult to separate medical theory, medically nourished philosophical speculation, and metaphysics. This is the case, whether in Descartes, Gaub, the âanimistâ Georg-Ernest Stahl, or materialists such as Guillaume Lamy and La Mettrie: medicine, or rather âa certain idea of medicineâ, is everywhere.
Here I focus on the motif of a radical medicine â a medical precursor of the Radical Enlightenment (Israel 2001, 2006, 2007), symbolized negatively by the slogan, tres medici, duo athei, or âwhere there are three doctors, there are two atheistsâ, i.e. medicine as a basis for atheism. This theme runs through various works of medical or medico-theological propaganda: Thomas Browneâs 1643 De religio medici begins with Browne regretting rumors of doctors being atheists as the âgeneral scandal of my Professionâ; Germain de Bezançonâs 1677 Les mĂ©decins Ă la censure works hard at rebutting the saying, âBon Physicien, mauvais chrĂ©tien.â But these are examples of the fear of a radical medicine â a medicine that denies the existence of an immortal soul, or even defends materialism and atheism. Are there positive statements of this doctrine? Indeed, attacks on it are much more common than statements identifying with it, like medical versions of natural theology in general.
In fact, just as there were theologically motivated medical works, there were also medically motivated works of radical or heretical theology, like William Cowardâs Second Thoughts on the Human Soul (Coward 1702, building on Overton 1644), which engaged in polemics concerning the nature of the soul â mortal or immortal? (Thomson 2008). Parallel to the mortalist trend, but flowing into a common genre of radical, medico-materialist texts (sometimes anonymous, such as LâĂme MatĂ©rielle, from the 1720s) are at least two other strands of radical medicine: a post-Cartesian focus on medicina mentis and the nature of the mind (Henricus Regius, Hieronymus Gaub, Antoine Le Camus), and an Epicurean medicine, in which mind and body are organismically united, with an additional hedonistic component, notably in Lamy, Mandeville and La Mettrie (Wright 1991, Wolfe and van Esveld 2014). The focus on a medicine of the mind (Corneanu, ms. 2013) is obviously connected to a âmedicalization of the soulâ: there was a body-soul problem in and for medicine, a sort of medicalized âpneumatologyâ. Radical medicine is located somewhere in between the early forms of ânaturalizationâ or âmedicalizationâ of the soul and the pose of scientific neutrality that is characteristic of early nineteenth-century medicine (as in Cabanis, Bichat or Bernard): it is a short-lived episode. I seek to reconstruct this intellectual figure, in which mortalist, post-Cartesian and Epicurean strands intersect and sometimes come together. I suggest that medically influenced materialism in the Radical Enlightenment (e.g. in the later French cases, La Mettrie, MĂ©nuret and Diderot), is different from later, more experimentally focused and more quantitatively oriented forms of medical materialism, precisely because of its radical dimension. This radical medicine often insists on vitality, as opposed to âanatomie cadavĂ©riqueâ: it is vital and hedonistic, a medicine concerned with maintaining bodily pleasure.Until recently, examinations of the 'mind-body problem' in historical context paid only cursory attention to its specifically medical dimension, if at all. At best, some 'folk physiology' was entertained, usually to laugh at it (the pineal gland, animal spirits). Conversely, historians of neuroscience or of artificial intelligence (Jeannerod M, The brain machine. The development of neurophysiological thought, trans. D. Urion, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985; Dupuy J-P, The mechanization of the mind: on the origins of cognitive science, trans. M.B. DeBevoise, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000) often present figures like La Mettrie as heroic early cases of 'naturalization', giving an experimental basis to materialism: their symmetrically inverse mistake is to take professions of medical authority too literally (although there are genuine cases where all of the above does coalesce where 'actors' categories mysteriously transcend historiographic projections -, such as Hieronymus Gaub's reflections on the 'regimen of the mind' in the mid-eighteenth century, or, more theoretically, Guillaume Lamy's Epicurean-inflected Anatomical Discourses on the Soul, eighty years earlier). Contrary to the denial of the relevance of medicine in early modern philosophy, as regards issues such as the body-soul (then body-mind) relation among others, it seems patently difficult to separate medical theory, medically nourished philosophical speculation, and metaphysics. This is the case, whether in Descartes, Gaub, the 'animist' Georg-Ernest Stahl, or materialists such as Guillaume Lamy and La Mettrie: medicine, or rather 'a certain idea of medicine', is everywhere.Here I focus on the motif of a radical medicine - a medical precursor of the Radical Enlightenment (Israel J, Radical enlightenment. Philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001; Israel J, Enlightenment contested. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, Israel J, Enlightenment, radical enlightenment and the "medical revolution" of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In: Grell OP, Cunningham A (ed) Medicine and religion in enlightenment Europe. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp 5-28, 2007), symbolized negatively by the slogan, tres medici, duo athei, or 'where there are three doctors, there are two atheists', i.e. medicine as a basis for atheism. This theme runs through various works of medical or medico-theological propaganda: Thomas Browne's 1643 De religio medici begins with Browne regretting rumors of doctors being atheists as the "general scandal of my Profession"; Germain de Bezancon's 1677 Les medecins a la censure works hard at rebutting the saying, "Bon Physicien, mauvais chretien." But these are examples of the fear of a radical medicine - a medicine that denies the existence of an immortal soul, or even defends materialism and atheism. Are there positive statements of this doctrine? Indeed, attacks on it are much more common than statements identifying with it, like medical versions of natural theology in general.In fact, just as there were theologically motivated medical works, there were also medically motivated works of radical or heretical theology, like William Coward's Second Thoughts on the Human Soul (Coward W, Second thoughts on the human soul. R. Basset, London, 1702, building on Overton 1644), which engaged in polemics concerning the nature of the soul - mortal or immortal? (Thomson A, Bodies of thought: science, religion, and the soul in the early enlightenment. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). Parallel to the mortalist trend, but flowing into a common genre of radical, medico-materialist texts (sometimes anonymous, such as L'Ame Materielle, from the 1720s) are at least two other strands of radical medicine: a post-Cartesian focus on medicina mentis and the nature of the mind (Henricus Regius, Hieronymus Gaub, Antoine Le Camus), and an Epicurean medicine, in which mind and body are organismically united, with an additional hedonistic component, notably in Lamy, Mandeville and La Mettrie (Wright JP, Locke, Willis, and the seventeenth-century epicurean soul. In: Osler MJ (ed) Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and stoic themes in European thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 239-258, 1991; Wolfe CT, van Esveld M, The material soul: strategies for naturalising the soul in an early modern epicurean context. In: Kambaskovic D (ed) Conjunctions: body, soul and mind from Plato to the enlightenment. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 371-421, 2014). The focus on a medicine of the mind (Corneanu, (ms. 2013), The care of the whole man: medicine and theology in the late renaissance, 2013) is obviously connected to a 'medicalization of the soul': there was a body-soul problem in and for medicine, a sort of medicalized 'pneumatology'. Radical medicine is located somewhere in between the early forms of 'naturalization' or 'medicalization' of the soul and the pose of scientific neutrality that is characteristic of early nineteenth-century medicine (as in Cabanis, Bichat or Bernard): it is a short-lived episode. I seek to reconstruct this intellectual figure, in which mortalist, post-Cartesian and Epicurean strands intersect and sometimes come together. I suggest that medically influenced materialism in the Radical Enlightenment (e.g. in the later French cases, La Mettrie, Menuret and Diderot), is different from later, more experimentally focused and more quantitatively oriented forms of medical materialism, precisely because of its radical dimension. This radical medicine often insists on vitality, as opposed to "anatomie cadaverique": it is vital and hedonistic, a medicine concerned with maintaining bodily pleasure
The material soul: Strategies for naturalising the soul in an early modern epicurean context
We usually portray the early modern period as one characterised by the âbirth of subjectivityâ with Luther and Descartes as two alternate representatives of this radical break with the past, each ushering in the new era in which âIâ am the locus of judgements about the world. A sub-narrative called âthe mind-body problemâ recounts how Cartesian dualism, responding to the new promise of a mechanistic science of nature, âsplit offâ the world of the soul/mind/self from the world of extended, physical substanceâa split which has preoccupied the philosophy of mind up until the present day. We would like to call attention to a different constellation of textsâneither a robust âtraditionâ nor an isolated âepisodeâ, somewhere in betweenâwhich have in common their indebtedness to, and promotion of an embodied, Epicurean approach to the soul. These texts follow the evocative hint given in Lucretiusâ De rerum natura that âthe soul is to the body as scent is to incenseâ (in an anonymous early modern French version). They neither assert the autonomy of the soul, nor the dualism of body and soul, nor again a sheer physicalism in which âintentionalâ properties are reduced to the basic properties of matter. Rather, to borrow the title of one of these treatises (LâĂme MatĂ©rielle), they seek to articulate the concept of a material soul. We reconstruct the intellectual development of a corporeal, mortal and ultimately material soul, in between medicine, natural philosophy and metaphysics, including discussions of Malebranche and Willis, but focusing primarily on texts including the 1675 Discours anatomiques by the Epicurean physician Guillaume Lamy; the anonymous manuscript from circa 1725 entitled LâĂme MatĂ©rielle, which is essentially a compendium of texts from the later seventeenth century (Malebranche, Bayle) along with excerpts from Lucretius; and materialist writings such Julien Offray de La Mettrieâs LâHomme-Machine (1748), in order to articulate this concept of a âmaterial soulâ with its implications for notions of embodiment, materialism and selfhood
Exercitationum Peripateticarum Libri II. Adversus Petri Frideri Mindani I.U.D. Partitiones Logicas; In Quibus Non Solum Theoremata Logica, Quae Friderus post omnes omnium hac de re Commentationes, absolutissime & exactissime se tradidisse affirmat, accurate examinantur ...
In Quibus Praeter, D. Philippi Melanchthonis Dialectices Librorum trium posteriorum ennarrationem accuratam, quam plurima Theoremata & Problemata Logica discutiuntur & determinantur: Petri Quoque Rami Nugae ... refutantur, & profligantur
Joannis Regii, SS. Theologiae Licentiati, Et Professoris Toruniensis, Selectissimarum Disputationum, Et Commentariorum Logicorum, ut & Quaestionum Theologicarum, Metaphysicarum & Physicarum Sectiones quinque; In Quibus Universa Problemata, Et Theoremata Logica ... explicantur, & quaecunque uspiam inter Logicos, tam veteres, quam novitios motae extant Controversiae ... discutiuntur, atque determinantur: Et Petri Rami Strophae Et Nugae, Quibus germanam Aristoteleae Logices veritatem ... evertere conatus est ... refutantur, proiiciuntur, atque profligantur ... ; Additus Est ... Index, CLX. Autorum ...
Exercitationum Peripateticarum Libri II. Adversus Petri Frideri Mindani I.U.D. Partitiones Logicas; In Quibus Non Solum Theoremata Logica, Quae Friderus post omnes omnium hac de re Commentationes, absolutissime & exactissime se tradidisse affirmat, accurate examinantur ...
Johannis Regii Oratio pro scepticismo: habita kalendis Junii 1725 cum munus rectoris illustris Frisiorum academiae deponeret
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