Jon McGinnis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195331479
- eISBN:
- 9780199868032
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331479.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, ...
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This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, and then discusses Avicenna’s views about health and the causes of disease or malady more generally. It concludes by considering a concrete issue of a medical-philosophical nature treated in Avicenna’s writings, namely, a problem associated with embryonic development and specifically whether embryonic development occurs gradually, as observation seems to suggest, or in stages, as theory seems to dictate. In the end, the chapter hopes to show how Avicenna successfully wed the best medicine of his time with his own philosophical system.Less
This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, and then discusses Avicenna’s views about health and the causes of disease or malady more generally. It concludes by considering a concrete issue of a medical-philosophical nature treated in Avicenna’s writings, namely, a problem associated with embryonic development and specifically whether embryonic development occurs gradually, as observation seems to suggest, or in stages, as theory seems to dictate. In the end, the chapter hopes to show how Avicenna successfully wed the best medicine of his time with his own philosophical system.
Erik J. Hammerstrom
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172769
- eISBN:
- 9780231541107
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172769.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted ...
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Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted modern scientific taxonomies of knowledge and scientific empiricism in ways informed by their Buddhist thinking that subsequently tempered, complicated, expanded, and deepened the modern Chinese discourse on science even as they advanced it.Less
Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted modern scientific taxonomies of knowledge and scientific empiricism in ways informed by their Buddhist thinking that subsequently tempered, complicated, expanded, and deepened the modern Chinese discourse on science even as they advanced it.
Juan Manuel Garrido
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239351
- eISBN:
- 9780823239399
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” ...
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The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” and we no longer know how to ask the question “what is life?” The traditional way of understanding life as self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged. This challenge entails questioning fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking, namely, time, finality, and above all being and existing. In this study, the author proposes some basics elements for the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the re-examination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications.Less
The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” and we no longer know how to ask the question “what is life?” The traditional way of understanding life as self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged. This challenge entails questioning fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking, namely, time, finality, and above all being and existing. In this study, the author proposes some basics elements for the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the re-examination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications.
Erik J. Hammerstrom
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170345
- eISBN:
- 9780231539586
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170345.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for ...
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The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for that period. It begins with a general outline of Chinese history from the mid nineteenth century to 1920, culminating in an explanation of the historical significance of the year 1923. The central third of the chapter describe the spread of modern science in China, particularly the professionalization institutionalization of the various sciences, which were generally complete by the mid 1930s. The chapter closes with a review of the history Chinese Buddhist during the entire period, underscoring the manner in which social changes served to compel Buddhists to engage with science.Less
The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for that period. It begins with a general outline of Chinese history from the mid nineteenth century to 1920, culminating in an explanation of the historical significance of the year 1923. The central third of the chapter describe the spread of modern science in China, particularly the professionalization institutionalization of the various sciences, which were generally complete by the mid 1930s. The chapter closes with a review of the history Chinese Buddhist during the entire period, underscoring the manner in which social changes served to compel Buddhists to engage with science.
C. U. M. Smith, Eugenio Frixione, Stanley Finger, and William Clower
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199766499
- eISBN:
- 9780199950263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199766499.003.0016
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, History of Neuroscience
This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It ...
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This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It reviews the ideas and concepts that led to the evolution of the animal spirit doctrine, and then discusses some notable individuals whose works helped improve current knowledge. This chapter also states that the present study tried to provide examples of how new ideas could emerge and how changes can occur in the life sciences.Less
This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It reviews the ideas and concepts that led to the evolution of the animal spirit doctrine, and then discusses some notable individuals whose works helped improve current knowledge. This chapter also states that the present study tried to provide examples of how new ideas could emerge and how changes can occur in the life sciences.
Juan Manuel Garrido
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239351
- eISBN:
- 9780823239399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239351.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This introductory chapter explains the main goal of this book: to define a traditional way of thinking life and to render plausible and relevant the task of carrying out a critical enquiry concerning ...
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This introductory chapter explains the main goal of this book: to define a traditional way of thinking life and to render plausible and relevant the task of carrying out a critical enquiry concerning it. Life has been traditionally understood as the self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, or, as is also said, of taking care of one's own hunger. This conceptualization entails a particular understanding of time in natural processes conerning living beings and a particular conception of the being of living beings (for instance, as the “care” of not ceasing to be). It is held that the traditional concept of life has furnished the main paradigm for the concept of being, including in Heidegger's philosophy, so that the deconstruction of the traditional understanding of life entails a deconstruction of ontology. This introductory chapter includes a description of the content of the book.Less
This introductory chapter explains the main goal of this book: to define a traditional way of thinking life and to render plausible and relevant the task of carrying out a critical enquiry concerning it. Life has been traditionally understood as the self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, or, as is also said, of taking care of one's own hunger. This conceptualization entails a particular understanding of time in natural processes conerning living beings and a particular conception of the being of living beings (for instance, as the “care” of not ceasing to be). It is held that the traditional concept of life has furnished the main paradigm for the concept of being, including in Heidegger's philosophy, so that the deconstruction of the traditional understanding of life entails a deconstruction of ontology. This introductory chapter includes a description of the content of the book.
Iain M. Cockburn, Scott Stern, and Jack Zausner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226326832
- eISBN:
- 9780226326856
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226326856.003.0005
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
This chapter reviews the roots of innovation in life sciences, an industry that has been the second-largest recipient of federal research funding (after defense), and which is justly celebrated for ...
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This chapter reviews the roots of innovation in life sciences, an industry that has been the second-largest recipient of federal research funding (after defense), and which is justly celebrated for the extraordinary productivity of the “innovation ecosystem” that links its public and private sectors. The nature of energy and climate change innovation is in many respects different in some fundamental ways from life sciences innovation; however, the evolution and structure of the life sciences innovation system offers an instructive comparison. The genesis and evolution of the life sciences innovation system is the consequence of a set of policy choices and a microeconomic environment that has allowed the United States to leverage a set of embryonic scientific discoveries into a platform for sustained innovation, which has had a significant impact on human health and welfare. Some key features of the life sciences innovation system, such as the set of interdependent firms, markets, institutions, and regulatory and legal frameworks responsible for this strong record of innovation, and some lessons from this sector for innovation policy in energy and climate change, are outlined in the chapter.Less
This chapter reviews the roots of innovation in life sciences, an industry that has been the second-largest recipient of federal research funding (after defense), and which is justly celebrated for the extraordinary productivity of the “innovation ecosystem” that links its public and private sectors. The nature of energy and climate change innovation is in many respects different in some fundamental ways from life sciences innovation; however, the evolution and structure of the life sciences innovation system offers an instructive comparison. The genesis and evolution of the life sciences innovation system is the consequence of a set of policy choices and a microeconomic environment that has allowed the United States to leverage a set of embryonic scientific discoveries into a platform for sustained innovation, which has had a significant impact on human health and welfare. Some key features of the life sciences innovation system, such as the set of interdependent firms, markets, institutions, and regulatory and legal frameworks responsible for this strong record of innovation, and some lessons from this sector for innovation policy in energy and climate change, are outlined in the chapter.
Helga Nowotny and Giuseppe Testa
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262014939
- eISBN:
- 9780262295802
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014939.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This book charts the mutual reconfiguration between scientific and social innovations in and around the molecular life sciences. Today’s biology is making visible what was once invisible. It parses ...
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This book charts the mutual reconfiguration between scientific and social innovations in and around the molecular life sciences. Today’s biology is making visible what was once invisible. It parses life into new units of sense-making and reassembles them into new forms: from genes to clones, from embryonic stages to the building-blocks of synthetic biology. Yet, extracted from their scientific and social context and turned into mobile resources, technical and discursive alike, these new forms of life become not only visible but indeed “naked”: ready to assume an – illusory - essential status and thereby take on multiple values and meanings as they pass from labs to courts, from patent offices to parliaments – and back. Our goal is to cast a new gaze on these dramatic advances in the life sciences by probing their mutual interaction with equally dramatic re-configurations in the political texture of our societies. To this end, we focus on paradigmatic encounters between scientific and social ingenuity, from assisted reproduction through personalized medicine to genetic sports doping. We bring into relief surprising continuities as well as radical discontinuities between innovation and tradition. On this basis we then trace how, when social arrangements appear disrupted, advances in the life sciences combine with “human technologies”–the law, governance, and ethics– to stabilize or innovate social order. This brings us to conclude that the task of institutions in the molecular age is to enable pluralism by carving a legitimate space for experimentation with new forms of biological life as well as with new forms of social life. Less
This book charts the mutual reconfiguration between scientific and social innovations in and around the molecular life sciences. Today’s biology is making visible what was once invisible. It parses life into new units of sense-making and reassembles them into new forms: from genes to clones, from embryonic stages to the building-blocks of synthetic biology. Yet, extracted from their scientific and social context and turned into mobile resources, technical and discursive alike, these new forms of life become not only visible but indeed “naked”: ready to assume an – illusory - essential status and thereby take on multiple values and meanings as they pass from labs to courts, from patent offices to parliaments – and back. Our goal is to cast a new gaze on these dramatic advances in the life sciences by probing their mutual interaction with equally dramatic re-configurations in the political texture of our societies. To this end, we focus on paradigmatic encounters between scientific and social ingenuity, from assisted reproduction through personalized medicine to genetic sports doping. We bring into relief surprising continuities as well as radical discontinuities between innovation and tradition. On this basis we then trace how, when social arrangements appear disrupted, advances in the life sciences combine with “human technologies”–the law, governance, and ethics– to stabilize or innovate social order. This brings us to conclude that the task of institutions in the molecular age is to enable pluralism by carving a legitimate space for experimentation with new forms of biological life as well as with new forms of social life.
Paul Julian Weindling
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206910
- eISBN:
- 9780191677373
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206910.003.0033
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
By the mid-1920s, scientific cooperation replaced Germany's medical assistance to Russia: defending German racial stocks from the ravages of epidemics and famine gave way to futuristic schemes of ...
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By the mid-1920s, scientific cooperation replaced Germany's medical assistance to Russia: defending German racial stocks from the ravages of epidemics and famine gave way to futuristic schemes of advanced research in genetics and pathology. The research into obscure illnesses from goitre to camel disease often in remote areas ostensibly demonstrated that two great nations were willing to cooperate in humanitarian medical research. But at the same time there were covert German national agendas: pathology, sero-anthropology, and genetics undermined the Treaty of Versailles by showing that it did not accord with the ethnic map of Europe, given the scattered nature of German communities in the east. Heinz Zeiss was crucial in sustaining German–Soviet medical cooperation. He laid the foundations for a wide-ranging programme of cooperation in medicine and the life sciences. Nikolai Lenin's sympathetic foreign policy towards Germany led to the Treaty of Rapallo of April 16, 1922. A German–Russian Laboratory or Institute for Racial Research was established in Russia. In the end, however, the ideological clash between Soviet communism and Nazism severed their residual academic and medical ties.Less
By the mid-1920s, scientific cooperation replaced Germany's medical assistance to Russia: defending German racial stocks from the ravages of epidemics and famine gave way to futuristic schemes of advanced research in genetics and pathology. The research into obscure illnesses from goitre to camel disease often in remote areas ostensibly demonstrated that two great nations were willing to cooperate in humanitarian medical research. But at the same time there were covert German national agendas: pathology, sero-anthropology, and genetics undermined the Treaty of Versailles by showing that it did not accord with the ethnic map of Europe, given the scattered nature of German communities in the east. Heinz Zeiss was crucial in sustaining German–Soviet medical cooperation. He laid the foundations for a wide-ranging programme of cooperation in medicine and the life sciences. Nikolai Lenin's sympathetic foreign policy towards Germany led to the Treaty of Rapallo of April 16, 1922. A German–Russian Laboratory or Institute for Racial Research was established in Russia. In the end, however, the ideological clash between Soviet communism and Nazism severed their residual academic and medical ties.
Juan Manuel Garrido
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239351
- eISBN:
- 9780823239399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239351.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter analyzes a second figure under which the deconstruction of the traditional way of thinking life is engaged. “Today, biologists no longer study life in laboratories,” François Jacob ...
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This chapter analyzes a second figure under which the deconstruction of the traditional way of thinking life is engaged. “Today, biologists no longer study life in laboratories,” François Jacob famously states. Following Rheinberger's historical epistemology, this chapter shows how the substantiality and regulative unity of the object “life” disappears as the horizon for the concrete empirical research in experimental systems. Research in life science does not presuppose the hermeneutical understanding or pre-understanding of the “being of life.”Less
This chapter analyzes a second figure under which the deconstruction of the traditional way of thinking life is engaged. “Today, biologists no longer study life in laboratories,” François Jacob famously states. Following Rheinberger's historical epistemology, this chapter shows how the substantiality and regulative unity of the object “life” disappears as the horizon for the concrete empirical research in experimental systems. Research in life science does not presuppose the hermeneutical understanding or pre-understanding of the “being of life.”
