From Natural Tendencies to Perceptual Interests and Motivation in Plato’s Timaeus

Rhizomata ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-178
Author(s):  
Pauliina Remes
Keyword(s):  
Natural State ◽  
Basic Aspect ◽  
Explanatory Framework

Abstract In the Timaeus, human bodies are treated as homeostatic systems, striving to maintain their natural state. This striving constitutes Plato’s explanatory framework for perception: perceptions come about when the equilibrium is shaken, and when it is restored. The article makes two main suggestions: first, that experienced pleasure and pain are grounded in non-experiential departures from and restorations of the natural state. Second, that the striving to maintain the natural state grounds perceptual interests, especially through conscious algesic and hedonic affection. Explanation of what humans find desirable and avoidable in their environment – what they attend to – is a complicated story that in the context of the Timaeus must include the role of human rational abilities. This article, however, only sheds light on its other, very basic aspect: the teleology involved in bodies and how it affects perceptual interests.

scholarly journals Farm Animals Are Long Away from Natural Behavior: Open Questions and Operative Consequences on Animal Welfare

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 724
Author(s):  
Alberto Cesarani ◽  
Giuseppe Pulina
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Farm Animal ◽  
Farm Animals ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Natural Behavior ◽  
Welfare Assessment ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Naive Approach

The concept of welfare applied to farm animals has undergone a remarkable evolution. The growing awareness of citizens pushes farmers to guarantee the highest possible level of welfare to their animals. New perspectives could be opened for animal welfare reasoning around the concept of domestic, especially farm, animals as partial human artifacts. Therefore, it is important to understand how much a particular behavior of a farm animal is far from the natural one of its ancestors. This paper is a contribution to better understand the role of genetics of the farm animals on their behavior. This means that the naïve approach to animal welfare regarding returning animals to their natural state should be challenged and that welfare assessment should be considered.

Autopoiesis and evolution: the role of organisms in natural drift

2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232110306
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Raimondi
Keyword(s):  
Living Systems ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Natural Drift ◽  
Genetic Reductionism ◽  
Development And Evolution

Genetic reductionism is increasingly seen as a severely limited approach to understanding living systems. The Neo-Darwinian explanatory framework tends to overlook the role of the organism for an understanding of development and evolution. In the current fast-changing theoretical landscape, the autopoietic approach provides conceptual distinctions and tools that may contribute to building an alternative framework. In this article, I examine the implications of the theories of autopoiesis and natural drift for an organism-centered view of evolution. By shifting the attention from genes to ontogenetic organism-niche configurations and their transformations over generations, this approach presents a compelling perspective on the role of organismal behavior in guiding phylogenetic drift.

The Study on Agricultural Non-Point Nitrogen Pollution Control

2012 ◽  
Vol 573-574 ◽  
pp. 213-217
Author(s):  
Gui Lan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Pollution Control ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Control Function ◽  
Nitrogen Pollution ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Runoff Water ◽  
Riparian Wetland ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Runoff Events

Purification effects of riparian wetland in a natural state on pollutants are unstable and are always influenced by hydrology, climate, and extent of wetlands development. For this reason, study of the role of the purification function of riparian wetland in a natural state is ongoing. In this study, with the Kouma section of the Yellow River wetlands as the study area, using the field experiment method and the 15N enriched technique, the agricultural non-point nitrogen pollution control function of Phragmites communis Trin in riparian wetlands was studied. Artificial runoff events enabled the collection of a temporal and spatial array of samples within the wetland so that the plume of runoff water moving through the wetland could be traced and its attenuation determined.

Sovereignty and Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-136
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Robé
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Organized Violence ◽  
The Relationship

The Chapter deals with the relationship between the two concepts of sovereignty and property. It first addresses the thesis developed by North, Wallis and Weingast on the role of organized violence in the development of a modern, open access society. Their intuition is that the « limited access order » of the « natural state » in which personal relationships form the basis of social organization had to leave the way to an « open access order » in which impersonal categories of individuals interact. This is generally correct. But they neglected the role of law in the process and, in particular, the role of the development of constitutional modes of government. Via modern international law, starting in Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century, sovereignty was allocated among States. Via modern liberal constitutions, internal sovereignty was decentralized as a matter of principle to owners, who are decision-makers as a matter of principle towards the objects of property. The operations of political Organs of the State, of administrative Organs of the State and of law can usefully be viewed in this perspective.

On the Role of Chemistry in the Development and Behavior of the Sensitive Marine Clays of Canada and Scandinavia

1975 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kenneth Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Short Range ◽  
Great Variability ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Chemical Factors ◽  
Leda Clay ◽  
Precise Relationship ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Marine Clays ◽  
Porewater Salinity

The Scandinavian and Canadian experiences are reviewed and analyzed in the light of recent experiments involving the effects of added salts on the remolded shear strength and the liquid limits of two Ottawa area clays, both of which had low porewater salinity in their natural state. The response was similar to that observed in the Scandinavian marine clays where the sensitivity decreases as the salinity increases. It is concluded that the similarities relating to the influence of chemical factors are greater than previous interpretations have indicated. The precise relationship between porewater salinity and sensitivity in Leda clay appears to be unique to each sample and a broad geographic relationship should not be expected. Even short range similarities may be obscured by the generally low salinities of the Canadian marine clays and the great variability in other factors, such as texture and degree of cementation, which also affect the sensitivity.

scholarly journals Existential Neuropsychology: A Science of Making Values

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Asmolov ◽  
M Falikman
Keyword(s):  
Personal Meaning ◽  
Existential Psychology ◽  
Existential Psychotherapy ◽  
Motor Functions ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Task Set ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Purposeful Activity ◽  
Set Value

In neurorehabilitation and restoration of motor functions, there are Vygotsky–Luria’s line and Leontiev–Zaporozhets’ line that are obviously connected, but their connection isn’t articulated enough. Their point of convergence dates back to mid 1940s, but since then the development of the two lines was largely parallel. And the missing link is Nikolay Bernshtein’s non-classical biology of purposeful activity. Both lines are intrinsically based on his predictive explanatory framework, with the central role of task set in movement construction, which, in turn, determines the hierarchy of levels where backward reafference (‘sensory corrections’) takes place. Current neurorehabilitation disregards the Bernsteinian idea of the central role of values and meanings in the recovery of movements, which opposes neurorehabilitation as training, or instruction, to neurorehabilitation as guidance, the latter relevant to Leontiev’s ‘personal meaning’ problem. Neurorehabilitation as guidance is generation of the personal meaning, or ‘making values’, allowing to overcome bounds perceived as insuperable, the idea that brings it together with existential psychology and existential psychotherapy. Keywords: rehabilitation, task set, value, image of the desired future, physiology of activity, existential neuropsychology, personal meaning

scholarly journals Philosophical and Epistemological Basis for Building a Quality Online Training Methodology

2011 ◽  
pp. 46-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Miguel Seoane Pardo ◽  
Francisco José García Peñalvo
Keyword(s):  
Reference Model ◽  
Online Training ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Training Methodology ◽  
Constructivist Model ◽  
E Learning ◽  
The One ◽  
Epistemological Basis ◽  
Epistemological Framework

This chapter outlines the problem of laying the groundwork for building a suitable online training methodology. In the first place, it points out that most e-learning initiatives are developed without a defined method or an appropriate strategy. It then critically analyzes the role of the constructivist model in relation to this problem, affirming that this explanatory framework is not a method and describing the problems to which this confusion gives rise. Finally, it proposes a theoretical and epistemological framework of reference for building this methodology based on Greek paideía. The authors propose that the search for a reference model such as the one developed in ancient Greece will allow us to develop a method based on the importance of a teaching profile “different” from traditional academic roles and which we call “tutor.” It has many similarities to the figures in charge of monitoring learning both in Homeric epic and Classical Greece.

scholarly journals The role of anthropogenic factors in forest transformation in Southern Sakhalin

2021 ◽  
Vol 946 (1) ◽  
pp. 012044
Author(s):  
R N Sabirov
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Pulp And Paper Mills ◽  
Paper Mills ◽  
Southern Sakhalin ◽  
Southern Island

Abstract The article analyzes the forests changes in the south part of Sakhalin Island from the original, natural state as a result of its habitation and economic development. The most essential disturbances of forest cover occurred in the first half of the last century when 9 pulp-and-paper mills were built by Japanese in southern island. All acceptable and more productive dark coniferous forests for providing these mills were cut down. Moreover, significant share of the forests was destroyed because of repeated and large-scale fires, creating agricultural lands and habitable territories, construction of roads, power lines, oil-and-gas pipelines, etc. The most considerable forests transformation was on the territory of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and also in Korsakovsky, Dolinsky, Anivsky, Kholmsky and Nevelsky districts.

scholarly journals Religionis et societatis, the archaic gaze of reason

XLinguae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Keyword(s):  
Final Stage ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Western World ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Basic Aspect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Role Of Religion

In these times of generalized neoliberalism that we are living, as totalitarian gazes are falling, it seems relevant to discuss the social role of religion from the critical-social perspective of modernity and especially, from the humanism of the future. Of course, I will drastically limit the scope this analysis being the topic so broad and complex. Thus, with rigorous humility, I will look at only one basic aspect of Max Weber’s religious thought, framing it and contrasting it with the critical vision of the Mesoamerican tradition. Max Weber argued that all religions form part of a historicaluniversal process whose evolution can be explained as driven by an inner logic constructed by the relentless urge toward the rationalization of ideas and life, especially in the case of salvation religions. This line of thought, with its universalist pretensions, leads us to question the validity of deterministic schemata that should be limited to the Western world and to European concerns -given their reductionism not only when compared to religious visions such as Kierkegaard’s with respect to Christianity (for him rationalism was not enough)- but also inasmuch as they leave out polytheistic projects and syncretic combinations such as the traditional conceptions of colonized peoples (where religions are monotheistic in name only, not having followed the steps of the Weberian protocol), or the ancient civilizational horizons such as China, India or Mesoamerica, whose evolution does not necessarily lead to the sort of final-stage rationality the German thinker had in mind

scholarly journals ICT and Online Social Movements for Good Governance in Nigeria

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Usman Adekunle Ojedokun
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The State ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
Embryonic Stage ◽  
Resource Mobilization Theory ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Mobilization Theory

In Nigeria, the availability of different Internet-enabled social media has led to the emergence of online social movements advocating the principle of good governance in the affairs of the state. In view of this, this paper examined the evolution of online social movements in Nigeria, and the role of ICT in their mobilization for good governance. Resource mobilization theory was employed as the explanatory framework. The paper contends that though online social movements in Nigeria are generally in their embryonic stage, they are, nonetheless, increasingly influencing the three organs of government and shaping public policies in the country.

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