Jacques Balthazart
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199838820
- eISBN:
- 9780199919512
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199838820.001.0001
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Neuroendocrine and Autonomic, Development
This book presents a simple description of the biological mechanisms that are involved in the determination of sexual orientation in animals and also presumably in humans. Using scientific studies ...
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This book presents a simple description of the biological mechanisms that are involved in the determination of sexual orientation in animals and also presumably in humans. Using scientific studies published over the last few decades, it argues that sexual orientation, both homosexual and heterosexual, is under the control of embryonic endocrine and genetic phenomena in which there is little room for individual choice. The book begins with animal studies of the hormonal and neural mechanisms that control the so-called instinctive behaviors and analyzes how this animal work may potentially apply to humans. The book does not focus exclusively on homosexuality, however. Instead, the book acts as a broader guide to the biological basis of sexual orientation, and also discusses important gender differences that may influence sexual orientation.Less
This book presents a simple description of the biological mechanisms that are involved in the determination of sexual orientation in animals and also presumably in humans. Using scientific studies published over the last few decades, it argues that sexual orientation, both homosexual and heterosexual, is under the control of embryonic endocrine and genetic phenomena in which there is little room for individual choice. The book begins with animal studies of the hormonal and neural mechanisms that control the so-called instinctive behaviors and analyzes how this animal work may potentially apply to humans. The book does not focus exclusively on homosexuality, however. Instead, the book acts as a broader guide to the biological basis of sexual orientation, and also discusses important gender differences that may influence sexual orientation.
Kristin Shrader-frechette General
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195074369
- eISBN:
- 9780199852932
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195074369.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter provides some scientific background of risk assessment and sets up some of the institutional questions concerning the appropriate evidentiary standards needed within torts and ...
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This chapter provides some scientific background of risk assessment and sets up some of the institutional questions concerning the appropriate evidentiary standards needed within torts and administrative law to establish the requisite harms or risks of harm. The discussion here focuses on animal bioassays and human epidemiological studies, two aspects of carcinogen risk assessment relied upon in regulatory institutions to ascertain risks to human beings. The best evidence that proves that a substance causes cancer to human beings is provided by well-done epidemiological studies with large samples and sufficient follow-up. However, the chapter begins by considering animal studies, which is the evidence much more frequently relied upon by regulatory agencies, although it is less typically used in tort law and some jurisdictions give it little credence. There are uncertainties in animal bioassays which are large enough such that two different researchers using exactly the same data points from an animal study can come to much different conclusions.Less
This chapter provides some scientific background of risk assessment and sets up some of the institutional questions concerning the appropriate evidentiary standards needed within torts and administrative law to establish the requisite harms or risks of harm. The discussion here focuses on animal bioassays and human epidemiological studies, two aspects of carcinogen risk assessment relied upon in regulatory institutions to ascertain risks to human beings. The best evidence that proves that a substance causes cancer to human beings is provided by well-done epidemiological studies with large samples and sufficient follow-up. However, the chapter begins by considering animal studies, which is the evidence much more frequently relied upon by regulatory agencies, although it is less typically used in tort law and some jurisdictions give it little credence. There are uncertainties in animal bioassays which are large enough such that two different researchers using exactly the same data points from an animal study can come to much different conclusions.
John Ó Maoilearca
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816697342
- eISBN:
- 9781452952291
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816697342.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Chapter Four explores all the implications of a non-standard approach to thought for both animal and film (animation) studies, explaining how Laruelle’s humanism is actually a form of non-standard ...
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Chapter Four explores all the implications of a non-standard approach to thought for both animal and film (animation) studies, explaining how Laruelle’s humanism is actually a form of non-standard humanism that reforms what philosophers have previously thought about the animal.Less
Chapter Four explores all the implications of a non-standard approach to thought for both animal and film (animation) studies, explaining how Laruelle’s humanism is actually a form of non-standard humanism that reforms what philosophers have previously thought about the animal.
Morris Moscovitch and Gordon Winocur
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195134971
- eISBN:
- 9780199864157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134971.003.0012
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Molecular and Cellular Systems
This chapter focuses on studies from animal and human-based research that reflect a general approach and provide converging evidence in support of the working-with-memory (WWM) model. It suggests ...
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This chapter focuses on studies from animal and human-based research that reflect a general approach and provide converging evidence in support of the working-with-memory (WWM) model. It suggests that as WWM structures, regions of the frontal cortex (FC) operate strategically on information delivered to the medial-temporal/diencephalic system and recovered from it, thereby conferring “intelligence” to what essentially is a “stupid” medial temporal lobe/diencephalic system. The FC is needed to implement encoding and retrieval strategies. The latter includes initiating and directing search in accordance with the demands of the task, monitoring and verifying recovered memories, and placing them in the proper temporal-spatial context.Less
This chapter focuses on studies from animal and human-based research that reflect a general approach and provide converging evidence in support of the working-with-memory (WWM) model. It suggests that as WWM structures, regions of the frontal cortex (FC) operate strategically on information delivered to the medial-temporal/diencephalic system and recovered from it, thereby conferring “intelligence” to what essentially is a “stupid” medial temporal lobe/diencephalic system. The FC is needed to implement encoding and retrieval strategies. The latter includes initiating and directing search in accordance with the demands of the task, monitoring and verifying recovered memories, and placing them in the proper temporal-spatial context.
Colleen Glenney Boggs
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231161237
- eISBN:
- 9780231531948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231161237.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book explores a key mechanism of biopolitics by which forms of power ranging from state authority to familial intimacy get conjoined and worked out via animal representations. More specifically, ...
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This book explores a key mechanism of biopolitics by which forms of power ranging from state authority to familial intimacy get conjoined and worked out via animal representations. More specifically, it highlights the crucial role of animals in the ways Americans enact their humanity and regulate subjects in the biopolitical state. Drawing on the writings of Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson, the book explains how biopower thrives on the strategic ambivalence between who is considered human and what is judged as animal. It demonstrates the exceptionality and exemplarity of animals, as both figures of radical alterity and the embodiment of biopolitics, to the biopolitical state. In addressing the cultural and political dimensions of animal representations as well as their significance, the book brings American literary studies in dialogue with critical animal studies.Less
This book explores a key mechanism of biopolitics by which forms of power ranging from state authority to familial intimacy get conjoined and worked out via animal representations. More specifically, it highlights the crucial role of animals in the ways Americans enact their humanity and regulate subjects in the biopolitical state. Drawing on the writings of Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson, the book explains how biopower thrives on the strategic ambivalence between who is considered human and what is judged as animal. It demonstrates the exceptionality and exemplarity of animals, as both figures of radical alterity and the embodiment of biopolitics, to the biopolitical state. In addressing the cultural and political dimensions of animal representations as well as their significance, the book brings American literary studies in dialogue with critical animal studies.
Geoff Hosey and Vicky Melfi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198753629
- eISBN:
- 9780191815225
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198753629.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Biology
Anthrozoology, the study of human–animal interactions (HAIs), has experienced substantial growth during the past twenty years and it is now timely to synthesise what we know from empirical evidence ...
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Anthrozoology, the study of human–animal interactions (HAIs), has experienced substantial growth during the past twenty years and it is now timely to synthesise what we know from empirical evidence about our relationships with both domesticated and wild animals. Two principal points of focus have become apparent in much of this research. One is the realisation that the strength of these attachments not only has emotional benefits for people, but confers health benefits as well, such that a whole area has opened up of using companion animals for therapeutic purposes. The other is the recognition that the interactions we have with animals have consequences for their welfare too, and thus impact on their quality of life. Consequently, we now study HAIs in all scenarios in which animals come into contact with humans, whether as pets/companions, farm livestock, laboratory animals, animals in zoos or in the wild. This topical area of study is of growing importance for animals in animal management, animal handling, animal welfare and applied ethology courses, and also for people within psychology, anthropology and human geography at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. It will therefore be of interest to students, researchers and animal managers across the whole spectrum of human–animal contact.Less
Anthrozoology, the study of human–animal interactions (HAIs), has experienced substantial growth during the past twenty years and it is now timely to synthesise what we know from empirical evidence about our relationships with both domesticated and wild animals. Two principal points of focus have become apparent in much of this research. One is the realisation that the strength of these attachments not only has emotional benefits for people, but confers health benefits as well, such that a whole area has opened up of using companion animals for therapeutic purposes. The other is the recognition that the interactions we have with animals have consequences for their welfare too, and thus impact on their quality of life. Consequently, we now study HAIs in all scenarios in which animals come into contact with humans, whether as pets/companions, farm livestock, laboratory animals, animals in zoos or in the wild. This topical area of study is of growing importance for animals in animal management, animal handling, animal welfare and applied ethology courses, and also for people within psychology, anthropology and human geography at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. It will therefore be of interest to students, researchers and animal managers across the whole spectrum of human–animal contact.
Danielle Sands
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439039
- eISBN:
- 9781474476881
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439039.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The introduction examines the role played by empathy in contemporary Animal Studies within the broader context of the affective turn. Outlining key features of Animal Studies, it contends that ...
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The introduction examines the role played by empathy in contemporary Animal Studies within the broader context of the affective turn. Outlining key features of Animal Studies, it contends that over-emphasis on empathy is problematic because it restricts engagement with animal life to sentient beings who share qualities with humans. In order to respond to the current environmental crisis, it argues that we need affective and cognitive responses which acknowledge the ethical value of all living beings, and a new model of cross-species storytelling.Less
The introduction examines the role played by empathy in contemporary Animal Studies within the broader context of the affective turn. Outlining key features of Animal Studies, it contends that over-emphasis on empathy is problematic because it restricts engagement with animal life to sentient beings who share qualities with humans. In order to respond to the current environmental crisis, it argues that we need affective and cognitive responses which acknowledge the ethical value of all living beings, and a new model of cross-species storytelling.
Jane C. Desmond
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226144054
- eISBN:
- 9780226375519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375519.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses ...
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In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses the challenges and particularities of the academic and scientific field of “animal studies”, as well as the functionality of experience and her own anxieties about what “animals” are actually involved in animal studies. Desmond wraps up the introduction with a general statement about the book’s purpose, and her hopes that it will help us understand how so many arenas of everyday life unfold in an embodied concert with animals.Less
In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses the challenges and particularities of the academic and scientific field of “animal studies”, as well as the functionality of experience and her own anxieties about what “animals” are actually involved in animal studies. Desmond wraps up the introduction with a general statement about the book’s purpose, and her hopes that it will help us understand how so many arenas of everyday life unfold in an embodied concert with animals.
Michael Lundblad
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474400022
- eISBN:
- 9781474434584
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474400022.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The introduction to this volume calls for the end of “animal studies” broadly conceived as an umbrella term encompassing such diverse fields as animality studies, posthumanism, human-animal studies, ...
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The introduction to this volume calls for the end of “animal studies” broadly conceived as an umbrella term encompassing such diverse fields as animality studies, posthumanism, human-animal studies, critical animal studies, and species critique. While these fields attempt to move beyond the human in various ways, they often have rather different ends in mind, if not explicit conflicts with each other. Lundblad thus argues that this range of work can be characterized more productively as falling under the three general categories of human-animal studies, posthumanism, and animality studies, with a common focus on what he calls “animalities”: texts, discourses, and material relationships that construct animals, on the one hand, or humans in relation to animals, on the other hand, or both.Less
The introduction to this volume calls for the end of “animal studies” broadly conceived as an umbrella term encompassing such diverse fields as animality studies, posthumanism, human-animal studies, critical animal studies, and species critique. While these fields attempt to move beyond the human in various ways, they often have rather different ends in mind, if not explicit conflicts with each other. Lundblad thus argues that this range of work can be characterized more productively as falling under the three general categories of human-animal studies, posthumanism, and animality studies, with a common focus on what he calls “animalities”: texts, discourses, and material relationships that construct animals, on the one hand, or humans in relation to animals, on the other hand, or both.
Louise Westling
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255658
- eISBN:
- 9780823261208
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255658.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This book is an interdisciplinary work in environmental humanities that puts Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy into dialogue with evolutionary biology, animal studies, and literature, arguing for ...
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This book is an interdisciplinary work in environmental humanities that puts Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy into dialogue with evolutionary biology, animal studies, and literature, arguing for evolutionary continuity between human cultural and linguistic behaviors and the semiotic activities of other animals. It departs from most philosophic and critical animal studies which retain the traditional view of human exceptionalism. Differing from other studies of Merleau-Ponty’s work, this book emphasizes his lifelong attention to science, showing how his examination of evolutionary biology, embryology, and ethology anticipated recent studies of animal behavior, cognition, and communication. Each chapter explores literary questioning of human-animal relations from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Euripides’s Bacchae to Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. Chapter 1 introduces Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of embodiment and dynamic intersubjectivity and chiasm in the context of the phenomenology introduced by Husserl and his proté;gé; Heidegger, with special emphasis on Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with science. Chapter 2 examines his exploration of animal studies and human animality, in which he insists that there is no evolutionary rupture between our species and other animals but instead a “strange kinship.” The final chapter explores Merleau-Ponty’s theory of language as embodied and gestural, placing it in the context of animal communication, especially among apes. It closes by examining his view that literature and the other arts are a distinctively human manifestation of the sedimentation of experience produced by all life forms on the planet. Here he anticipated the findings of biosemiotics.Less
This book is an interdisciplinary work in environmental humanities that puts Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy into dialogue with evolutionary biology, animal studies, and literature, arguing for evolutionary continuity between human cultural and linguistic behaviors and the semiotic activities of other animals. It departs from most philosophic and critical animal studies which retain the traditional view of human exceptionalism. Differing from other studies of Merleau-Ponty’s work, this book emphasizes his lifelong attention to science, showing how his examination of evolutionary biology, embryology, and ethology anticipated recent studies of animal behavior, cognition, and communication. Each chapter explores literary questioning of human-animal relations from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Euripides’s Bacchae to Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. Chapter 1 introduces Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of embodiment and dynamic intersubjectivity and chiasm in the context of the phenomenology introduced by Husserl and his proté;gé; Heidegger, with special emphasis on Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with science. Chapter 2 examines his exploration of animal studies and human animality, in which he insists that there is no evolutionary rupture between our species and other animals but instead a “strange kinship.” The final chapter explores Merleau-Ponty’s theory of language as embodied and gestural, placing it in the context of animal communication, especially among apes. It closes by examining his view that literature and the other arts are a distinctively human manifestation of the sedimentation of experience produced by all life forms on the planet. Here he anticipated the findings of biosemiotics.
Michael Lundblad and Marianne DeKoven
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231152839
- eISBN:
- 9780231526838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231152839.003.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This book explores new and necessary questions about the relationship between animality and advocacy, such as whether animal advocacy suggests prioritizing the suffering of animals over the suffering ...
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This book explores new and necessary questions about the relationship between animality and advocacy, such as whether animal advocacy suggests prioritizing the suffering of animals over the suffering of human beings. In other words, who comes first in activism, disenfranchised humans or animals. The book tackles this and other questions of animality in relation to constructions of human race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability by focusing not only on whether cultural studies should pay more attention to animal advocacy but also on whether animal studies should respond more broadly to the cultural politics of animality and “the animal.” It also asks why there has been resistance in the academy to linking advocacy for animals with advocacy for various human groups. Finally, it illustrates how animal studies remain a broad field with no mandatory form of advocacy and no necessary correlation with animal rights activism, in particular.Less
This book explores new and necessary questions about the relationship between animality and advocacy, such as whether animal advocacy suggests prioritizing the suffering of animals over the suffering of human beings. In other words, who comes first in activism, disenfranchised humans or animals. The book tackles this and other questions of animality in relation to constructions of human race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability by focusing not only on whether cultural studies should pay more attention to animal advocacy but also on whether animal studies should respond more broadly to the cultural politics of animality and “the animal.” It also asks why there has been resistance in the academy to linking advocacy for animals with advocacy for various human groups. Finally, it illustrates how animal studies remain a broad field with no mandatory form of advocacy and no necessary correlation with animal rights activism, in particular.
John Ó Maoilearca
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816697342
- eISBN:
- 9781452952291
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816697342.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
All Thoughts Are Equal is an introduction to the work of French philosopher François Laruelle and an experiment in nonhuman thinking. For Laruelle, standard forms of philosophy continue to dominate ...
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All Thoughts Are Equal is an introduction to the work of French philosopher François Laruelle and an experiment in nonhuman thinking. For Laruelle, standard forms of philosophy continue to dominate our models of what counts as exemplary thought and knowledge. By contrast, what Laruelle calls his “non-standard” approach attempts to bring democracy into thought, because all forms of thinking are equal in value. Philosophy–the discipline that posits itself as the power to think at the highest level–does not have a monopoly on reason. Such democracy clearly has relevance for the nonhuman, too. If non-philosophy hopes to extend what we mean by thinking beyond the boundaries set by classical approaches, then such a project has important implications as regards the existence and value of nonhuman forms of thought. This study strives to see how philosophy might appear when we look at it with non-philosophical and nonhuman eyes. And it does so by refusing to explain Laruelle through orthodox philosophy, opting instead to follow the structure of a film, Lars von Trier’s The Five Obstructions, to introduce the non-standard method. Von Trier’s documentary is a meditation on the creative constraints set by film, both technologically and aesthetically, and how they can push our experience of film, and of ourselves, beyond what is normally deemed “the perfect human.” All Thoughts Are Equal adopts those constraints in its own experiment by showing how Laruelle’s radically new style of philosophy is best introduced using our most nonhuman form of thought, that found in cinema itself.Less
All Thoughts Are Equal is an introduction to the work of French philosopher François Laruelle and an experiment in nonhuman thinking. For Laruelle, standard forms of philosophy continue to dominate our models of what counts as exemplary thought and knowledge. By contrast, what Laruelle calls his “non-standard” approach attempts to bring democracy into thought, because all forms of thinking are equal in value. Philosophy–the discipline that posits itself as the power to think at the highest level–does not have a monopoly on reason. Such democracy clearly has relevance for the nonhuman, too. If non-philosophy hopes to extend what we mean by thinking beyond the boundaries set by classical approaches, then such a project has important implications as regards the existence and value of nonhuman forms of thought. This study strives to see how philosophy might appear when we look at it with non-philosophical and nonhuman eyes. And it does so by refusing to explain Laruelle through orthodox philosophy, opting instead to follow the structure of a film, Lars von Trier’s The Five Obstructions, to introduce the non-standard method. Von Trier’s documentary is a meditation on the creative constraints set by film, both technologically and aesthetically, and how they can push our experience of film, and of ourselves, beyond what is normally deemed “the perfect human.” All Thoughts Are Equal adopts those constraints in its own experiment by showing how Laruelle’s radically new style of philosophy is best introduced using our most nonhuman form of thought, that found in cinema itself.
Lucy G. Cheke, James M. Thom, and Nicola S. Clayton
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195395518
- eISBN:
- 9780199897230
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395518.003.0116
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
This chapter reviews studies on intertemporal choice (ITC) in animals. It argues that intertemporal decisions between immediate and delayed rewards involve competition between affective and cognitive ...
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This chapter reviews studies on intertemporal choice (ITC) in animals. It argues that intertemporal decisions between immediate and delayed rewards involve competition between affective and cognitive processes, but that when neither reward is immediate, the competition exists primarily between different types of outcome representation, or levels of construal. Thus, when faced with an ITC between two nonimmediate rewards, the behavioral outcome of this decision depends on the relative strength of various prospective representations. The relative contribution of episodic representations diminishes with the temporal distance of the event being represented, to be replaced by representations of the decontextualized “essence” of the event. In line with this view, the contribution of both episodic and non-episodic prospective cognition to the intertemporal decisions of nonhuman animals can be investigated by assessing preference across different nonimmediate time delays.Less
This chapter reviews studies on intertemporal choice (ITC) in animals. It argues that intertemporal decisions between immediate and delayed rewards involve competition between affective and cognitive processes, but that when neither reward is immediate, the competition exists primarily between different types of outcome representation, or levels of construal. Thus, when faced with an ITC between two nonimmediate rewards, the behavioral outcome of this decision depends on the relative strength of various prospective representations. The relative contribution of episodic representations diminishes with the temporal distance of the event being represented, to be replaced by representations of the decontextualized “essence” of the event. In line with this view, the contribution of both episodic and non-episodic prospective cognition to the intertemporal decisions of nonhuman animals can be investigated by assessing preference across different nonimmediate time delays.
Colin Gardner and Patricia MacCormack (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474422734
- eISBN:
- 9781474434959
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474422734.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Human-animal studies and the age of the anthropocene are prevalent across many disciplines at this time and this book is among the first to explore the usefulness of Deleuze for extensions and ...
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Human-animal studies and the age of the anthropocene are prevalent across many disciplines at this time and this book is among the first to explore the usefulness of Deleuze for extensions and debates in these fields which only Deleuzian understandings of human subjectivity can provide. While Deleuzian studies has always been critical of the structure and status of human subjectivity, utilizing Deleuze in discussions of the contentious and unstable concept of the animal underlines the utility of his work for altering both theories and practices from art to philosophy to everyday activism. This book collects essays by established scholars in the field of Deleuze studies, and new scholars, to show not only the diversity of Deleuze’s applicability to human-animal studies but to call into question what we mean by the seemingly simple idea of ‘the animal’. Through 16 chapters Deleuze’s entire oeuvre is used in analysing television, film, music, art, drunkenness, mourning, virtual technology, protest, activism, animal rights and abolition. Each chapter questions the premise of the animal as a discrete, easily understood concept and thereby simultaneously places the human as animal and critiques the centrality of the human. The book aims to create new questions in reference to what the age of the anthropocene means by ‘animal’ as much as to analyse and explore examples of the unclear boundaries between human and animal.Less
Human-animal studies and the age of the anthropocene are prevalent across many disciplines at this time and this book is among the first to explore the usefulness of Deleuze for extensions and debates in these fields which only Deleuzian understandings of human subjectivity can provide. While Deleuzian studies has always been critical of the structure and status of human subjectivity, utilizing Deleuze in discussions of the contentious and unstable concept of the animal underlines the utility of his work for altering both theories and practices from art to philosophy to everyday activism. This book collects essays by established scholars in the field of Deleuze studies, and new scholars, to show not only the diversity of Deleuze’s applicability to human-animal studies but to call into question what we mean by the seemingly simple idea of ‘the animal’. Through 16 chapters Deleuze’s entire oeuvre is used in analysing television, film, music, art, drunkenness, mourning, virtual technology, protest, activism, animal rights and abolition. Each chapter questions the premise of the animal as a discrete, easily understood concept and thereby simultaneously places the human as animal and critiques the centrality of the human. The book aims to create new questions in reference to what the age of the anthropocene means by ‘animal’ as much as to analyse and explore examples of the unclear boundaries between human and animal.
Danielle Sands
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439039
- eISBN:
- 9781474476881
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439039.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical ...
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Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical distancing from the sometimes claustrophobic proximity of empathy – currently the prevailing mode in Animal Studies – this book interrogates the claims made of empathy without exchanging it for the kind of abstract, disembodied reason which has long disavowed the ethical status of nonhuman life. This book is particularly interested in the stories that we tell, and are told, by beings at the edges of animal life, insects, and the possibility that the indifference, even disgust, that these creatures evoke might form the basis for an ethics which is not bounded by empathy. Across five interdisciplinary chapters, it asks: is it possible to read, write and think non-anthropocentrically? How might we develop approaches to nonhuman life which are affectively and critically informed? It contends that reframing the human in relation to the elements of itself which it denounces as inhuman can inform a renewed attentiveness to nonhuman life.Less
Reading contemporary fiction and philosophy alongside each other, Animal Writingproposes a thinking of and with animals which brings together critical and affective approaches. Aspiring to a critical distancing from the sometimes claustrophobic proximity of empathy – currently the prevailing mode in Animal Studies – this book interrogates the claims made of empathy without exchanging it for the kind of abstract, disembodied reason which has long disavowed the ethical status of nonhuman life. This book is particularly interested in the stories that we tell, and are told, by beings at the edges of animal life, insects, and the possibility that the indifference, even disgust, that these creatures evoke might form the basis for an ethics which is not bounded by empathy. Across five interdisciplinary chapters, it asks: is it possible to read, write and think non-anthropocentrically? How might we develop approaches to nonhuman life which are affectively and critically informed? It contends that reframing the human in relation to the elements of itself which it denounces as inhuman can inform a renewed attentiveness to nonhuman life.
Louise Westling
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255658
- eISBN:
- 9780823261208
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255658.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Beginning with attention to the anxious exploration of human relations with other animals and wildness in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Euripides’s Bacchae, this chapter engages the question of the ...
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Beginning with attention to the anxious exploration of human relations with other animals and wildness in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Euripides’s Bacchae, this chapter engages the question of the animal in Heidegger, Derrida, and present critical animal debates. It argues that Merleau-Ponty’s work on the animal question anticipated and moved considerably beyond the positions of most present theorists. By examining his attention to scientific animal studies in embryology, Uexküll’s umwelt theory, ethology, and human evolution in the Nature lectures, the chapter closes with a description of his acknowledgment of an evolutionary continuity between humans and other animals. It demonstrates his recognition of symbolic behavior, culture, and proto-linguistic activities among animals that manifest a “strange kinship” with humans.Less
Beginning with attention to the anxious exploration of human relations with other animals and wildness in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Euripides’s Bacchae, this chapter engages the question of the animal in Heidegger, Derrida, and present critical animal debates. It argues that Merleau-Ponty’s work on the animal question anticipated and moved considerably beyond the positions of most present theorists. By examining his attention to scientific animal studies in embryology, Uexküll’s umwelt theory, ethology, and human evolution in the Nature lectures, the chapter closes with a description of his acknowledgment of an evolutionary continuity between humans and other animals. It demonstrates his recognition of symbolic behavior, culture, and proto-linguistic activities among animals that manifest a “strange kinship” with humans.
Daniel Belgrad
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226652368
- eISBN:
- 9780226652672
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226652672.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In conjunction with the growing impact of ecological thinking and its emphasis on empathy, the seventies witnessed a new focus on the affective quality of human-animal relations. Numerous popular ...
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In conjunction with the growing impact of ecological thinking and its emphasis on empathy, the seventies witnessed a new focus on the affective quality of human-animal relations. Numerous popular works advocated the recognition of animals as intelligent, feeling, and communicative beings. Acknowledging the emotional lives of animals demanded moving beyond behaviorist approaches, which remained rooted in the dualism of mind and matter that characterized Enlightenment science. This led to a particular excitement about exploring new forms of human relationship with horses and small toothed whales (dolphins and killer whales), as these were two groups of animals that were known to resist behavioral conditioning. Due to its reliance on empathy and physicality, the new ideal for interacting with animals was often described as a kind of dance. A range of innovative choreographies, including John Lilly's flotation therapy, contact improvisation, and horse whispering, were developed to foster empathetic connections between humans and animals through interactive or emulative bodily movements. The goal of achieving better emotional rapport with animals was not entirely directed toward establishing their more humane treatment; it was also predicated on the idea that humans could benefit from the interaction by learning to empathize with their own animal being.Less
In conjunction with the growing impact of ecological thinking and its emphasis on empathy, the seventies witnessed a new focus on the affective quality of human-animal relations. Numerous popular works advocated the recognition of animals as intelligent, feeling, and communicative beings. Acknowledging the emotional lives of animals demanded moving beyond behaviorist approaches, which remained rooted in the dualism of mind and matter that characterized Enlightenment science. This led to a particular excitement about exploring new forms of human relationship with horses and small toothed whales (dolphins and killer whales), as these were two groups of animals that were known to resist behavioral conditioning. Due to its reliance on empathy and physicality, the new ideal for interacting with animals was often described as a kind of dance. A range of innovative choreographies, including John Lilly's flotation therapy, contact improvisation, and horse whispering, were developed to foster empathetic connections between humans and animals through interactive or emulative bodily movements. The goal of achieving better emotional rapport with animals was not entirely directed toward establishing their more humane treatment; it was also predicated on the idea that humans could benefit from the interaction by learning to empathize with their own animal being.
Tok Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496825087
- eISBN:
- 9781496825131
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496825087.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Posthuman Folklore explores how our human condition is increasingly thought of, and performed, in posthuman terms. Insights from animal studies have triggered the “animal turn” in scholarship, while ...
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Posthuman Folklore explores how our human condition is increasingly thought of, and performed, in posthuman terms. Insights from animal studies have triggered the “animal turn” in scholarship, while the increasing digitization of human culture and the newly emerging roles of androids and artificial intelligences provide yet another crux for reconsidering what it means to be a person. Taken together, such outlooks cast in doubt the previous assurances of human ontology which were lodged in Western discourse. This book explores not only the scholarship behind such moves, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which everyday people are increasingly enacting posthumanism in their everyday lives. The book follows a narrative thread of various case studies ranging from the pre-hominid to the cyborg, and ends with a futurist appraisal of current trajectories.Less
Posthuman Folklore explores how our human condition is increasingly thought of, and performed, in posthuman terms. Insights from animal studies have triggered the “animal turn” in scholarship, while the increasing digitization of human culture and the newly emerging roles of androids and artificial intelligences provide yet another crux for reconsidering what it means to be a person. Taken together, such outlooks cast in doubt the previous assurances of human ontology which were lodged in Western discourse. This book explores not only the scholarship behind such moves, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which everyday people are increasingly enacting posthumanism in their everyday lives. The book follows a narrative thread of various case studies ranging from the pre-hominid to the cyborg, and ends with a futurist appraisal of current trajectories.
Andrew Rowan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262017060
- eISBN:
- 9780262301602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262017060.003.0012
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter highlights at least one additional source of potential common ground: by better defining and assessing animal distress, researchers could likely reduce such distress and also improve the ...
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This chapter highlights at least one additional source of potential common ground: by better defining and assessing animal distress, researchers could likely reduce such distress and also improve the quality of research results. It analyzes some of the issues that arise in attempts to assess the “value” and “costs” of animal research and describes some of the criticisms of a reliance on animal studies to advance biomedical knowledge and therapies. It argues that the techniques for measuring either the benefits or the costs of animal research are too crude to produce a clear “for-or-against” answer. This chapter suggests that assessing costs (in terms of distress and suffering) is extraordinarily difficult and there has been very little serious scholarship on the question of the “costs” of animal research.Less
This chapter highlights at least one additional source of potential common ground: by better defining and assessing animal distress, researchers could likely reduce such distress and also improve the quality of research results. It analyzes some of the issues that arise in attempts to assess the “value” and “costs” of animal research and describes some of the criticisms of a reliance on animal studies to advance biomedical knowledge and therapies. It argues that the techniques for measuring either the benefits or the costs of animal research are too crude to produce a clear “for-or-against” answer. This chapter suggests that assessing costs (in terms of distress and suffering) is extraordinarily difficult and there has been very little serious scholarship on the question of the “costs” of animal research.
Andrew Steptoe
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780198568162
- eISBN:
- 9780191724107
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198568162.003.0005
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter is concerned with how variations in socio-economic position affect physical disease. It begins by describing the pathways that theoretically link socio-economic position with physical ...
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This chapter is concerned with how variations in socio-economic position affect physical disease. It begins by describing the pathways that theoretically link socio-economic position with physical disease, and by explaining the potential significance of psychobiological responses. The findings concerning psychobiological processes are organized round the primary methodologies that have been used to explore these pathways, namely animal studies, human laboratory mental stress testing, and naturalistic studies of biological function in everyday life. It is shown that there has been rapid development in this field over recent years, and that although there are still many uncertainties, we are moving into an era in which conclusions about the significance of psychobiological processes can be made with greater confidence.Less
This chapter is concerned with how variations in socio-economic position affect physical disease. It begins by describing the pathways that theoretically link socio-economic position with physical disease, and by explaining the potential significance of psychobiological responses. The findings concerning psychobiological processes are organized round the primary methodologies that have been used to explore these pathways, namely animal studies, human laboratory mental stress testing, and naturalistic studies of biological function in everyday life. It is shown that there has been rapid development in this field over recent years, and that although there are still many uncertainties, we are moving into an era in which conclusions about the significance of psychobiological processes can be made with greater confidence.
