Vitalistic Approaches to Life in Early Modern England

Vitalism has been given different definitions and diverse figures have been labelled as vitalists throughout the history of ideas. Concentrating on the seventeenth century, we find that scholars identify as vitalists authors who endorse notions that are in diametrical opposition with each other. I briefly present the ideas of dualist vitalists and monist vitalists and the philosophical and theological considerations informing their thought. In all these varied forms of vitalism the identifiable common motives are the essential irreducibility of life and the universality of life

The Visual Art Critic: A Survey of Art Critics at General Interest News Publications in America

Examines whether art critics provide sufficient exposure for artists and art institutions, given the recent dynamic growth in the visual arts over the past two decades

Extended emotions

Until recently, philosophers and psychologists conceived of emotions as brain- and body-bound affairs. But researchers have started to challenge this internalist and individualist orthodoxy. A rapidly growing body of work suggests that some emotions incorporate external resources and thus extend beyond the neurophysiological confines of organisms; some even argue that emotions can be socially extended and shared by multiple agents. Call this the extended emotions thesis. In this article, we consider different ways of understanding ExE in philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences. First, we outline the background of the debate and discuss different argumentative strategies for ExE. In particular, we distinguish ExE from cognate but more moderate claims about the embodied and situated nature of cognition and emotion. We then dwell upon two dimensions of ExE: emotions extended by material culture and by the social factors. We conclude by defending ExE against some objections and point to desiderata for future research

Arts for All: Connecting to New Audiences

Summarizes discussions among arts leaders and experts at an April 2008 conference on how to build arts appreciation and participation in a new environment through better marketing, new technology, and audience research

Multivariate Subresultants in Roots

We give rational expressions for the subresultants of n+1 generic polynomials f_1,..., f_{n+1} in n variables as a function of the coordinates of the common roots of f_1,..., f_n and their evaluation in f_{n+1}. We present a simple technique to prove our results, giving new proofs and generalizing the classical Poisson product formula for the projective resultant, as well as the expressions of Hong for univariate subresultants in roots.Comment: 22 pages, no figures, elsart style, revised version of the paper presented in MEGA 2005, accepted for publication in Journal of Algebr