Kant, Linnaeus, and the economy of nature.

Ecology arguably has roots in eighteenth-century natural histories, such as Linnaeus's economy of nature, which pressed a case for holistic and final-causal explanations of organisms in terms of what we'd now call their environment. After sketching Kant's arguments for the indispensability of final-causal explanation merely in the case of individual organisms, and considering the Linnaean alternative, this paper examines Kant's critical response to Linnaean ideas. I argue that Kant does not explicitly reject Linnaeus's holism. But he maintains that the indispensability of final-causal explanation depends on robust modal connections between types of organism and their functional parts; relationships in Linnaeus's economy of nature, by contrast, are relatively contingent. Kant's framework avoids strong metaphysical assumptions, is responsive to empirical evidence, and can be fruitfully compared with some contemporary approaches to biological organization.

De la ruptura o el vínculo entre razón y locura en Descartes, Foucault y Derrida / On rupture or the bond between reason and madness in Descartes, Foucault and Derrida

Este trabajo propone pensar la relación entre locura y razón, pero a su vez problematizar su supuestamente clara diferencia a partir de tres lecturas interconectadas. Como texto que nos servirá de punto de partida, discutiremos las Meditaciones Metafísicas de René Descartes. A continuación, revisaremos la crítica al mismo que se encuentra en el capítulo «El gran encierro» de la Historia de la locura en la época clásica de Michel Foucault, donde se presenta la consideración de que en la Modernidad, de la mano de Descartes, se habría llevado a cabo un «violento encierro filosófico de la locura». En tercer lugar, se recogerá la discusión de esta tesis por parte de Jacques Derrida en el segundo capítulo de La escritura y la diferencia, «Cogito e historia de la locura», cuya propuesta se opone a la teoría de que tal encierro haya tenido lugar y, en todo caso, de que se trate de un hecho histórico. Se atenderá también brevemente a la respuesta de Michel Foucault a su contemporáneo en el apéndice de la segunda edición de su Historia de la locura, «Mi cuerpo, ese papel, ese fuego». En suma, se presenciará el debate entre estos dos pensadores en torno al párrafo en el que Descartes, al menos, menciona la posibilidad de la locura (AU)

This article proposes thinking the relation between madness and reason, but at the same time problematizing its allegedly evident difference taking into account three interconnected works. As the starting point we will discuss Descartes’ Metaphysical Meditations. Afterwards, we will review the critique made to it in the chapter «the Great Confinement» of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, where it is argued that it was during the Modern Age, with Descartes, when a «violent philosophical confinement of madness» was carried out. Thirdly, we will assess Jacques Derrida’s discussion of this thesis in the second chapter of Writing and Difference, «Cogito and the History of Madness», whose proposal refuses the theory according to which such confinement would have occurred, and if anything, that it is not a historical fact. We will also take notice of Foucault’s counterargument to Derrida in the appendix to the second edition of his History of Madness, «My body, this paper, this fire». To sum up, we will meet the debate between these two authors around Descartes’ paragraph in which he, at least, mentions the possibility of madness (AU)

Memories in photography and rebirth: toward a psychosocial therapy of the metaphysics of reincarnation among traditional Esan people of Southern Nigeria.

The aim of this article is to show that beyond the need for the justification of the belief in reincarnation, beyond the quest for evidences to prove its reality or otherwise, the idea of rebirth has a pragmatic role in the cultures where it is held. Using the theorization of rebirth among the Esan people of southern Nigeria as a pilot, it asserts that the idea of rebirth plays a psychosocial, therapeutic function of comfort and healing for those traumatized by the death of a loved one. This, it shall be seen, is similar to, even more reliable than, the role of photography in preserving cherished memories. The article does not, therefore, mean to join issues in the myth-reality or truth-falsehood debate on rebirth among scholars but attempts to establish the role of reincarnation, like photography, in bringing the past into the present.

[Machina Machinarum. The clock as a concept and metaphor between 1450 and 1750]. / Machina Machinarum. Die Uhr als Begriff und Metapher zwischen 1450 und 1750.

The changing use of the clock metaphor serves as a helpful contrast medium to highlight the different concepts of the body-soul-system between 1450 and 1750. This article first relates to the social, political and philosophical functions of the horologium. Then it outlines the different fields of discourse, in which the clock metaphor was mainly invoked. Finally, it examines the writings of a number of significant authors (Cusanus, Ficino, Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, La Mettrie) with an eye to the evolution of the clock metaphor in various theological, metaphysical and physiological contexts. Surprisingly enough, the clock (or watch) initially represented the life-giving soul and human consciousness, before turning into the well-known symbol for the body-machine, and in particular for its neurophysiological operations.

[The body as source of significance. Interdisciplinary perspectives]. / Corpul ca sursa de semnificatie. Perspective interdisciplinare.

This paper concerns a general theoretical aspect, followed by different examples which discusses the thesis in relation to major connected domains of research: psychology and philosophy. The thesis which we are arguing for is that the body represents a source of significance in the definitions of he self used as theoretical background in moral problems (philosophical aspect) and the explanations of the way the image of the self is constituted (psychological aspect). The philosophical "conclusion" is that the body, in its materiality, cannot be judged by the metaphysical dualism scheme, which assigns it a secondary role in the hierarchy of categories. From a psychological point of view, this paper tends to show that the body does not represent an accident of personality or a "prison of the soul" as Plato refers to it, but rather an element through which personality is built on and develops and similarly, the mental and personality structures are those which allow the forming of corporeality and then the person's reference to it.

Nietzsche e a arte como abrigo espiritual / Nietzsche y el arte como abrigo espiritual / Nietzsche and the art as a spiritual shelter

Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a arte como abrigo espiritual para a vivência existencial de Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), pois ela torna-se recorrrente ao autor enquanto fonte através da qual ele busca dar respostas às suas indagações metafísicas. A influência dessa espiritualidade manifesta-se atualmente em uma grande parcela da população brasileira que vem se declarando 'sem religião', (CENSO IBGE, 2000). Assim, na esteira do pensamento do criador da obra Assim falou Zaratustra (1881), buscar-se-á navegar na escola da suspeita do filósofo, objetivando encontrar uma compreensão sobre essa espiritualidade laica. Ademais analisar-se-á também como a sua postura, de esbarrar o instinto teológico - anunciando 'a morte de Deus' -, repercute hoje no mosaico social brasileiro (AU)

This article has a goal to argue about art as a spiritual shelter to the existing life of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), therefore it becomes recurrent the author while source through which he tries to give answers to this manifests currently in a great parcel of the brazilian population that has been declaring 'without religion', (CENSUS OF IBGE, 2000). In creator's thoughts path of the book Thus spoke Zaratustra (1881), it will be searched to browse inside the philosopher's suspicion school, objectifyind to find an understanding on this laical spirituality. Furthermore, it will aslo be analized as his posicion, of touching the theological instint - announcing 'God's deadth', it re-echoes nowadays in brazilian social mosaic (AU)

Nietzsche e a arte como abrigo espiritual / Nietzsche y el arte como abrigo espiritual / Nietzsche and the art as a spiritual shelter

Este artigo tem como objetivo discutir a arte como abrigo espiritual para a vivência existencial de Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), pois ela torna-se recorrrente ao autor enquanto fonte através da qual ele busca dar respostas às suas indagações metafísicas. A influência dessa espiritualidade manifesta-se atualmente em uma grande parcela da população brasileira que vem se declarando 'sem religião', (CENSO IBGE, 2000). Assim, na esteira do pensamento do criador da obra Assim falou Zaratustra (1881), buscar-se-á navegar na escola da suspeita do filósofo, objetivando encontrar uma compreensão sobre essa espiritualidade laica. Ademais analisar-se-á também como a sua postura, de esbarrar o instinto teológico - anunciando 'a morte de Deus' -, repercute hoje no mosaico social brasileiro

This article has a goal to argue about art as a spiritual shelter to the existing life of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), therefore it becomes recurrent the author while source through which he tries to give answers to this manifests currently in a great parcel of the brazilian population that has been declaring 'without religion', (CENSUS OF IBGE, 2000). In creator's thoughts path of the book Thus spoke Zaratustra (1881), it will be searched to browse inside the philosopher's suspicion school, objectifyind to find an understanding on this laical spirituality. Furthermore, it will aslo be analized as his posicion, of touching the theological instint - announcing 'God's deadth', it re-echoes nowadays in brazilian social mosaic

Development of the concept of mind.

A short account is given of the development of concepts of soul, mind and brain in order to place in historical context the subject of neuropsychiatry. A selection of primary and secondary historical sources is used to trace development of these concepts. Beginning with the spirits of Animism in the 3rd millennium BC, the Greek invention of the soul and its properties, of thymos (emotion), menos (rage) and nous (intellect) are then traced from the time of Homer, in which the soul does not last the death of the body, to Plato in the 4th century BC who argued that the soul, incorporating the nous (now called mind) is incorporeal and immortal. Plato's pupil, Aristotle, commented on the impossibility of an incorporeal soul interacting with a corporeal body. He instituted a revolution in the concept of mind. This involved pointing out that 'mind' is a manner of speaking about our psychological powers as in thinking and remembering. Given that such powers are not a thing the problem does not arise as to the relation between mind and a corporeal body. These ideas of Plato and Aristotle were held by competing scholars and theologians during the next 2000 years. Plato was favoured by many in the Church who could more readily grasp the concept of an immortal and incorporeal soul within the context of Christian thought. Galen established in the 2nd century AD that psychological capacities are associated with the brain, and argued that the fluid-filled ventricles were the part of the brain involved. This argument stood for over 1500 years until the 17th century when Willis, as a consequence of the new blood perfusion techniques developed by Wren following Harvey, showed that blood did not enter the ventricles but the cortex, thereby transferring interest from the ventricles to the cortex. The hegemony of Plato's ideas was broken about this time by Descartes when he argued that the incorporeal soul does not consist of three parts (thymos, nous and menos) but is solely identical with the mind, which is not just concerned with reasoning but with perception and the senses, indeed identical with consciousness 'taken as everything we are aware of happening within us'. The shadow cast by this concept, necessitating as it does relating the Cartesian mind to the cortex, stretches from the time of Willis, through to the foundation figures of neurophysiology and psychiatry in the early 20th century, namely Sherrington and Kraepelin, and beyond. This history is traced in detail because the Cartesian paradigm provides the main resistance to Kraepelin's argument that mental illness has biological concomitants. It is argued that the modern tendency to equate the mind with the brain does not illuminate the problem that was solved by Aristotle. The mind is not as either Plato of Descartes would have it, nor is it equivalent to the brain, for talk of the mind is a manner of talking about human psychological powers and their exercise, as in 'mind your step' (watch where you are going), 'keep that in mind' (remember it). It is suggested that the history of the concept of mind shows that a human being has a corporeal body and a mind, that is, a range of psychological capacities. It is the role of neuropsychiatry to identify the changes in the corporeal that need to be put aright when these psychological capacities go awry.

Síntomas de una época: magnetismo, histeria y espiritismo en la Alemania Romántica / No disponible

Centrándose en el análisis de tres casos especialmente significativos se pretende comprender el significado histórico del encuentro en la Euro`pa de comienzos de l siglo XIX de una teoría médica -el magnetismo animal-, un peculiar sistema de creencias -el espiritismo- y una enfermedad ya conocida, pero que comenzará a contemplarse con una mirada nueva: la histeria. Seráb, por otra parte, la enfermedad y la teoría médica quienes den alas a ese sistema de creencias y permitan su despliegue en el seno de la cultura occidental, afirmándose frente a otras concepciones del mundo y mostrando, con ello, las insuficientes de estas últimas

By centring on analysis of three particularly significant cases, the article seeks to understand the historical meaning of the encounter in early 19th-century Europe between a medical theory -mesmerism-, a peculiar system of beliefs -spiritualism- and an already known disease, but which was to be seen from a new perspective: hysteria. Moreover, the disease and the medical theory are the elements that made this system of beliefs flourish and enable it to take hold in the core of Western culture, affirming itself over other conceptions of the world and showing, with this, the insufficiencies of the latter

[The "doctrine of signatures" and graphical technologies at the dawn of modernity]. / Doctrine des signatures et technologies graphiques au seuil de la modernité.

The "Doctrine of signatures" occupies an important position in the scientific and medical thinking from the 16th century onwards. In a universe conceived as a vast system of correspondences, in particular between our world and God's will, the signatures are the visible marks of the purpose of divine creation. In therapeutic practices they indicate the virtues of plants by their resemblance to specific organs they are supposed to be able to cure. This Doctrine, like the medical practices it served, is often relegated to a pre-modern knowledge. Shifting the perspective from its doctrinal content to its practical applications in medical treatises, this article suggests that the graphical and scriptural treatment of signatures by Oswald Crollius (ca 1560-1609), Giovanni Battista Della Porta (1534-1615) and Wolfgang Ambrosius Fabricius (1653) allowed the invention of an instrument which, by formalising and systematising the correspondences between plants and organs, made possible a practical use in which metaphysical and religious justifications were not explicitly involved any more, precisely these justifications which resulted in confining this doctrine outside of modernity.

[X-rays between art and science in The Magic Mountain]. / Rontgenstralen tussen wetenschap en kunst in De Toverberg.

When x-ray, in the early 1900s, was hailed as the new instrument of objective verification and indisputable proof, it signaled the reign of the visual over the other senses of empirical verification, such as sound and touch. The extent of visual evidence was believed to be all- encompassing: x-rays were supposedly a sort of super photography that could prove the existence of immaterial substances, the materiality of things heretofore unseen. Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924) elaborates on three invisible aspects of the body: the verification of disease (tuberculosis), the visualization of intimate feelings such as love, and the ultimate proof of the spirtual self after death. In all three areas - medical, psychological and metaphysical - the x-ray was thought to be a magical instrument that could render the body (and soul) transparent. The Magic Mountain does not simply reflect these beliefs, but problematizes cultural conceptions inspired by medical-scientific axiomas.

The cosmobiological balance of the emotional and spiritual worlds: phenomenological structuralism in traditional Chinese medical thought.

This paper points to a convergence of formal and rhetorical features in ancient Chinese cosmobiological theory, within which is developed a view of the inner life of human emotions. Inasmuch as there is an extensive classical tradition considering the emotions in conjunction with music, one can justify a structural analysis of medical texts treating disorder in emotional life, since emotions, musical interpretation and structural analysis all deal with systems interrelated in a transformational space largely independent of objective reference and propositional coordination. Following a section of ethnolinguistic sketches to provide grounds in some phenomenological worlds recognized by Chinese people, there is a textual analysis of a classical medical source for the treatment of emotional distress. Through close examination of the compositional schema of this text, it can be demonstrated that the standard categories of correlative cosmology are arrayed within a more comprehensive structural order.

[Not Available]. / Paracelsus im Urteil der Naturforschung und Medizin der Romantik.

In the opinion of the natural sciences and medicine of the Romantic Era, Paracelsus represents a central step from the Middle Ages to modern times. Their interpretations of this perceived kindred spirit "not free from criticism" focus on metaphysical orientations, holistic approach to cosmology and anthropology, biochemical perspective, ethical dominance, immenent union of etiology, pathophenomenology and therapy.

[René Allendy and the medicine of the imponderables]. / René Allendy et la médecine des impondérables.

René Allendy was one of the first French psychoanalysts. He was also a homeopath. A text by him on the "medicine of the imponderables" demonstrates his proximity to esoteric theories. The objective of this article is to illustrate a cultural misunderstanding at the time of the introduction of psychoanalysis in France, when it met up with a Gnostic and Illuminist heritage that was still very much alive. This initial confusion between the Freudian approach, which was in keeping with the thinking of the Lumières, and a certain obscurantism, explains perhaps some of the resistance as well as some of the subsequent deviations of psychoanalysis in France.

The five cosmic elements as depicted in Indian and Chinese cosmologies.

Indian and Chinese cosmologies are compared, each containing five cosmic elements. The Indian elements are Akasha, Air Fire, Water, and Earth. Akasha connotes Creative energy. As depicted it is substituted by reproduction projected as creation. Hence the male and female generative organs as Lingam-Yoni, already recognized in Hinduism as symbolizing the source of creative energy, have been depicted as such. The other four elements represent creation proper. In Chinese cosmology the full term is "Yin-Yang Wu-Hshing." Wu-Hshing signifies Five=Cosmic elements and these are Wood, Fire, Water, Earth, and Metal. They are taken from Iran. Since there is no element to represent creative energy this is expressed by the term Yin-Yang, or Black and White in lieu of male-female or Lingam-Yoni of Indian cosmology. The organs of reproduction have been projected as the opposites that generate creative energy. Virtually Yin-Yang=Lingam-Yoni=Creative energy generators.