The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has exposed a shared condition of vulnerability on a global scale. How can we use vulnerability as an effective paradigm in order to foster collective political initiatives? This essay claims that the idea of care is key to understand the vulnerability framework as being both an epistemic and a political resource to address ethical issues. The first half of the essay recollects several arguments in Adriana Cavarero’s and Judith Butler’s most recent works, insofar as both theorists (...) have insisted on the notion of vulnerability in order to interpret contemporary political mobilizations. The second part of the essay retraces a constellation of practices of care in the works of several Black and decolonial feminist thinkers situated in different socio-political contexts. Whereas for Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman the focus is on the matter of Blackness and Black lives in their constitutive vulnerability, both Cristina Rivera Garza’s and Sayak Valencia’s works remarkably insist on the specific socio-political context of today’s Mexico. These authors urge the readers to adopt a critical posture when encountering official narratives, also because in their texts they exhibit their own vulnerability. For them, writing, their writing is an ethical demand to imagine alternatives and to foster new entanglements between bodies persisting on the margins, at the limits of the norms that regulate legibility. (shrink)

Ibn Djuljul from Andalusia who wrote in the Western Islamic World and Nadīm from Baghdād who wrote in the Eastern Islamic World, give information about lots of physicians and translators in their books that contributed significantly to history of science. Both authors write their books at same time or very close time. Sometimes they offer similar information, but sometimes they provide different information. -/- One of the physicians whom Ibn Djuljul mentioned in his book, Māsarjawayh lived at the times of (...) Umayyads. Nadīm gives information about Māsarjīs who lived at the times of Abbāsids. However, in the course of centuries, some authors combined the knowledge about these two people by giving reference to Ibn Djuljul’s and Nadīm’s work and represented as the same person. Accordingly, most of the modern scholars mentioned the two authors as a substitute. -/- This paper wants to keep track of this confusion and wants to clarify whether Māsarjawayh who was mentioned by Ibn Djuljul and Māsarjīs who was told by Nadīm are the same person or not. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is one in which (...) we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

In modern zoos, enrichment programs have become a standard part of animal care routines. Although 'higher' primates usually receive complex enrichment programs, encompassing many types of enrichment, these are less common for prosimians. These animals often largely receive food-based enrichment, as was previously the case at Auckland Zoo, where the ring-tailed lemur enrichment schedule contained only three different items, all food-related. Lemurs tend to be considered less curious and quick to learn than other primates, as well as being less manually (...) dextrous, and for these reasons can be overlooked for complex enrichment. However, they have strong sensory abilities, in particular an acute sense of smell (Sauther et al 1999). This paper describes an enrichment program designed for the lemurs at Auckland Zoo with the aim of stimulating all senses. (shrink)

Although the tradition of the Buddhist logic in India had been developed through the debates with non-Buddhists, that in pre-modern Japan hardly had such experiences. The applications of inmyō were limited to the disputes between the Hossō school (Japanese transmission of Yogācāra school) and another Buddhist schools. During the rapid modernization and westernization after the Meiji restoration, however, Buddhist logicians also encountered the non-Buddhist cultures including the deductive and inductive logics, Christianity, democracy and republicanism imported from Western countries. A part (...) of them, such as Kira Kōyō, regarded inmyō as useful for the democratic discussion, and promoted it to the politicians and the legal professionals. Their introductory books about inmyō included many sample expressions which criticized the existence of God and the authenticity of republicanism, as well as the unequal treaties forced by Europe and America. In spite of those efforts, inmyō did not become popular in modern Japan. In addition, it also lost the scholars' interest in the twentieth century, because of the introduction of the scriptures of Indian logic in Sanskrit and Tibetan. But the inmyō studies in Meiji period should not be ignored, since they were regarded not only as one of the intellectual refutations to the West in East Asia, but also as the previous researches which were studied by East Asian scholars of the Buddhist logic. (shrink)

Coronary artery vasospasm (CAVS) is a clinical entity that can cause angina, but also unstable angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction, fatal arrhythmias, and sudden death. Although it is a condition that is usually controlled with medical treatment, more aggressive treatments may rarely be required. In this case, the patient with a known diagnosis of CAVS had multiple arrests despite optimal medical treatment. We observed that fatal arrhythmias persisted in the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) records, even though we implanted a stent (...) and gave the patient maximal medical treatment. We performed sympathectomy as a last resort and we did not detect any recurrence in the 6-month follow-up of the patient. ICD implantation and sympathectomy should always be considered in resistant CAVS cases. (shrink)

Speciale V centenario "Utopia" di Tommaso Moro (1616-2016). Bruno,Moro e il vincolo dello spirito.

Llega a nosotros una obra filosófica, cuyo trabajo exploratorio a través de la naturaleza humana, nos permite observar la totalidad del ser desde una perspectiva antropológica. El libro La vida humana como trascendencia de Don Enrique R. Moros es un mapa del hombre, trazado en coordenadas metafísicas: verdad y libertad, fruto de una labor de confrontación con diferentes perspectivas filosóficas que, en la metáfora con la que nos conduce el autor, son aquellos mapas trazados por antiguos exploradores que, de alguna (...) manera, dejaron indicado el norte adecuado para continuar esa labor. (shrink)

I say: “Oh, what a beautiful surrealist picture!” With quite precise awareness: this páthos, these emotions of mine do not stem from our common sense. An aesthetic judgment is founded on an immediate subjective intuition: an emotion or a free feeling of a single subject towards an object. A universal sense, possibly. Some judgments of ours in ethics and in law are no different from our perceptions in front of art. It would be the same for a hypothetical sentence of (...) the judge that concluded with these words: “I acquit Arsenio Lupin because of his magnificent handlebar moustache like that of Guy de Maupassant”. Everyone would think intuitively that it is an unfair sentence. Is there aesthetics of terror? The case that the article intends to examine is that of the famous kidnapping and murder of the Italian statesman Aldo Moro by the “Brigate Rosse” [Red Brigades] (1978). The method used here consists in studying the image of the kidnapping as iconic documentation of reality, and, above all, as an ethical-legal judgment about the terrorist crime. Moro was photographed during his kidnapping. There are at least two pictures. Both constitute an extraordinary source for a judgment on the basis of an image. In both of them, Aldo Moro is pictured in front of a Red Brigades banner during the captivity. In what sense do these pictures document an aesthetic judgment concerning the “case Moro”? The answer can be found in a remarkable iconic coincidence of these pictures with a masterpiece by Georges Rouault (Paris 1871-1958) devoted to the theme of the “Ecce Homo”. The Gospel in the “Ecce Homo” scene (John: 19, 4-5) narrates how Pontius Pilate wanted to arouse the compassion of the people with a scourging and the exposure of Jesus to the crowd. The plate under consideration is entitled “Qui ne se grime pas?” [Who does not have a painted face?] and is a key work in Rouault’s suite of prints Miserere, dated for 1923. (shrink)

El filósofo valenciano Luis Vives perteneció a una familia judía perseguida por la Inquisición, de modo que salió de España a los 17 años y nunca volvió. Junto con Tomás Moro Y Erasmo de Rotterdam forma un trío de destacados intelectuales europeos que pueden catalogarse como 'humanistas' en el sentido preciso que intento definir en esta conferencia, impartida en la Universidad de La Habana en 2018. El humanismo fue un movimiento cultural, que intentó oponerse a las guerras religiosas que se (...) desarrollaron en el siglo XVI, conciliando a los bandos enfrentados. Su fracaso fue inevitable, porque bajo la ideología religiosa se disfrazaba la lucha de la burguesía por alcanzar el poder político y la hegemonía social, frente a las antiguas clases dirigentes de carácter aristocrático feudal. (shrink)