A Natural Interpretation of Aristotelian Teleology

Over the years, there has been a turn in the academy that is adopted as the postmodern era which encompasses the posthumanist, and a shift within it to new materialist, and affect theories. Human-dominant influence over natural elements such as flora and fauna, non-human animals, material, and immaterial objects is subjected to a radical shift. The innovative understanding of science and technology plays a crucial role in this current wave. Posthumanist thought comes in contact with a human-centered society, however, proposing a decentralized approach to the way humans perceive themselves in the environment. The politics at play here is not anti-humanist but a revisiting and acknowledgment of the environmental entities that make up the human space. Therefore, this paper takes an expository inquiry, querying if the knowledge of Darwin’s evolutionary theory can be applied to the understanding of artistic performance through a posthumanist approach. Also, does posthumanism and the evolution of contemporary performance have what it takes to affect and effect the desired modification, granting agency not only to the human animals but to other non-human entities? Hence, humans must learn to coexist in the ecological space sharing power amongst things, plants, non-human animals, objects, and other forms of technological creations. Methodologically, the online library sources provide primary data for this research with a selection of works by three posthumanist performers to be analyzed. This research is pivotal to the artistic application of biology and technology, as tools in solving contemporary performance-related issues amongst humans, the organic and inorganic matter.

Natural radioactivity of the crust as an important factor of the chemical evolution of the early Earth

Protection of the environment, especially its factors, is an essential concern for humanity, since the environment is a vital element for human survival. The continuous increase in the phenomenon of pollution at a global level cannot be ignored. If world economic development is not aligned with these requirements, there is a real risk of serious deterioration of various elements of the environment, with dangerous consequences for human life and health, as well as for flora and fauna. Traditionally, the term ,,environment" refers to the totality of natural conditions and elements on Earth: air, water, soil, subsoil, landscape characteristics, all atmospheric layers, organic and inorganic matter, as well as living things, interacting natural systems, the quality of life and factors that can affect human well-being and health. The notion of environment can only be spoken of with reference to man, since he occupies the central position in the natural and artificial environment, taking into account the natural interests of living in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment

Michael Nair-Collins and Franklin Miller are right to emphasise that, in order to deliberate responsibly about ethical and legal questions related to brain death and organ donation, it is crucial...

Abstract. It is misleading to speak of warfare between science and Christian theology, as Andrew White did in 1896. White also was mistaken in exaggerating the conflict between the church and Galileo and Copernicus. The more important issue between science and theology has to do with the mechanistic interpretation of nature. When he introduced the principle of inertia in his natural philosophy, René Descartes insisted that God's immutability renders it impossible for God to intervene in the creation. He reduced the idea of God to a deistic notion by speaking of motion exclusively as a property of bodies. Even though Isaac Newton offered a different view, the Cartesian view dominated subsequent thinking. This made dialogue with theology difficult. Michael Faraday, followed by Albert Einstein, introduced the idea of field; bodily phenomena were subordinated as manifestations of fields. The precursor of the idea of field is the Stoic idea of spirit, which is close to the biblical concept of spirit. Thomas Torrance and I have taken this concept of field as an occasion to reopen dialogue. Mechanistic thinking accounts for the tension between Darwinian thought and theology. In principle the tension can be resolved, because the Bible itself asserts that all living things were brought from the earth—that is, organic life emerged from inorganic matter. Thus, emergence, contingency, and novelty are consistent with Darwinian evolutionary thinking. Contingency can be related conceptually to the activity of God in creation.

Since its origin from inorganic matter, biological life undoubtedly has gained complexity. Evidence of this can be found in the lineage of the Viridiplantae or Chlorobionta (“green plants”), represented by the extant diversity of green algae and land plants. The land plants, together with the multicellular animals, arguably represent the two most complex groups of organisms on earth. For both groups, a correlation between the observable morphological complexity and the regulatory networks principally controlling it has been hypothesized. Both groups of organisms not only independently evolved multicellularity, but also underwent ancestral whole genome duplication events that presumably acted as evolutionary playgrounds for the expansion of regulatory and morphological complexity. Within animals, multicellularity evolved once and most genome duplications occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. However, an entirely different scenario unfolds among the Viridiplantae: multicellularity evolved several times independently within the green lineage, and genome duplication is the rule rather than the exception and continues to be utilized. The most successful flavor of green multicellularity evolved within the last common ancestor of extant land plants and their sister group, the charophyte algae. In this chapter, we will review common complexity concepts, introduce and compare means to quantify them, and discuss how the evolution of morphological complexity, as measured by gene regulatory complexity, distinctively affected terrestrial plants and the predominantly aquatic green, red and brown algae.KeywordsViridiplantaeLand plantsGene regulatory networksTranscriptional regulationWhole genome duplicationMorphological complexityMulticellularityGene retentionAlgae

Lung macrophages (LMs) are essential immune effector cells that are pivotal in both innate and adaptive immune responses to inhaled foreign matter. They either reside within the airways and lung tissues (from early life) or are derived from blood monocytes. Similar to macrophages in other organs and tissues, LMs have natural plasticity and can change phenotype and function depending largely on the microenvironment they reside in. Phenotype changes in lung tissue macrophages have been implicated in chronic inflammatory responses and disease progression of various chronic lung diseases, including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). LMs have a wide variety of functional properties that include phagocytosis (inorganic particulate matter and organic particles, such as viruses/bacteria/fungi), the processing of phagocytosed material, and the production of signaling mediators. Functioning as janitors of the airways, they also play a key role in removing dead and dying cells, as well as cell debris (efferocytic functions). We herein review changes in LM phenotypes during chronic lung disease, focusing on COPD, as well as changes in their functional properties as a result of such shifts. Targeting molecular pathways involved in LM phenotypic shifts could potentially allow for future targeted therapeutic interventions in several diseases, such as COPD.

The Logic of Nature

In a previous work (Beltran et al., 1998) the ozonation of the herbicide alachlor (2chloro, N-2,6-diethyl-N-(metoxymethyl) acetanilide) present in a surface water was shown to be a suitable technology to remove this pollutant. The process is mainly carried out by hydroxyl radicals formed on ozone decomposition. However, ozonation produces a rather small concentration of hydroxyl radicals compared to that measured from other processes. Hydroxyl radical oxidation of pollutants in surface waters presents the disadvantage of the competitive effect of some natural substances like carbonates and/or humic compounds. In fact, the presence of these substances can inhibit the oxidation since hydroxyl radicals react unselectively with most of the organic and inorganic (carbonates) matter present in surface waters (Hoigne, 1982). Thus, oxidation processes able to increase the concentration of hydroxyl radicals are preferred.

There is arguably no aspect of the “modern turn” more wide ranging in its consequences than the critique of classical teleology. In the Aristotelian system teleology is the essential bridge connecting natural philosophy to ethics and politics. Just as for Aristotle there are ends ‘within nature as a whole, so there is an end of man which defines his place within the natural order. The discovery of the natural human telos will structure the Aristotelian concept of “the good life” at which ethics and politics aim. Aristotle’s claims on behalf of the theoretic life as the best form of life rest on his teleological claims concerning rational activity as the telos of man. Tearing down Aristotle’s bridge was fundamental to the project of early modern philosophy which established the new modern science. The arguments against final causality, and restriction of science to material and efficient causes was central for three luminaries of modern thought – Sir. Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Benedict Spinoza. Although, these arguments are surprisingly weak, they nonetheless were epochal in their consequences. The exclusion of the ethical-political good from the science of nature resulted not only in a new science but also in a new politics – as is seen with the system of Hobbes.

John Hunter

The design objective is to satisfy people's needs, improve the quality of life, the pursuit of human, natural and social harmony. This article mainly elaborated the guidance in product design is the natural substance and natural elements, grasping the true feelings, returning to the initial, plain, true desire and behavior, discussing the design idea and method of return to original purity and simplicity, and will be up to a new value of passionate life, natural life and how to achieve certain value and meaning in creative product design.

Objective Experiencing pain not only affects patients' biopsychosocial functioning but also the existential domain. Attention to the existential, in addition to the biopsychosocial domains, might thus be important in chronic pain care. Therefore, we investigated: (a) how satisfied patients were with the attention of their practitioners to the impact of pain on biological, psychological, social, and existential life domains, and (b) how satisfaction with each domain was related to patient functioning. Method Pain patients ( N = 163) were questioned on their satisfaction with the attention of their practitioners to biological, psychological, social, and existential life domains, and on pain intensity, pain disability, life satisfaction, and depressive symptoms. Results Patients reported low satisfaction with the attention of their practitioners to the social and existential domains. Satisfaction with each domain was negatively related with pain intensity, pain disability, and depressive symptoms and positively related with life satisfaction. Only satisfaction with the existential domain was able to predict all functional outcomes above and beyond all other satisfaction variables modeled simultaneously. Conclusions Patients reported not feeling satisfied with the attention to the social and existential life domains. Furthermore, practitioners' attention to the existential domain seems highly important for patient functioning. Openness to existential concerns of pain patients might thus be an important aspect of chronic pain care.

Skin inflammation or atopic Dermatitis (AD) is a long-lasting, inflammatory skin condition which generally develops in early life. The aetiology is a complex disorder with genetics, barrier function, immunity, and environmental factors all playing key roles in disease progression. Since vitamin D has immunomodulatory properties and immunologic systems assume a job in the pathogenesis of atopic eczema. The point of the investigation is to correspond vitamin D focuses in patients who have skin inflammation with the clinical and natural elements. Questionnaire population-based study 60 patients and 50 healthy volunteers (control) with age between 17-60 years were used in this study for about 3 months. The diagnosis has based the prevalence and morphology of hand eczema in a patient with atopic dermatitis in 2006 and the blood samples were collected from each patient before filling the questionnaire form, then the level of vitamin D (VD) was measured. The mean estimation of serum vitamin D in AD was greatly of lower than the normal value, and there was a substantial difference found in the mean estimations of vitamin D between AD patients (18.51) and the controls (23.38) with P value 0.001, there is a significant distinction between patients with mild eczema and those with severe eczema, which could lead to a significant increase in vitamin D deficiency as eczema worsens, while there was no significant association among VD subgroups with age, and gender in AD patients. The results from this study indicated that VD is the main factor in the development of AD and its supplementation may help ameliorate medical signs of the disease.

The fight against cancer cells in the human body involves a defense system that is comprised of the innate and adaptive immunities which are controlled by a series of immune responses mediated by different immune cells (ICs) and their secretory substances including cytokines and chemokines. Natural substances, synthetic compounds, and antibody elements are used as immunostimulating and immunosuppressive agents. But here are certain restrictions to the overall use of these compounds, such as the increased risk of infection and generalized effect throughout the immune system. The use of plants and plant products as immunomodulators is still in a developing stage. At non-cytotoxic concentrations, the phytoconstituents exhibited three types of immunomodulation including type 1 of PHA, ConA, and quercetin (increased lymphocyte activation and IFN-γ secretion); type 2 of isopimpinellin (enhanced lymphocyte activation) and type 3 of rutin, bergapten and xanthotoxin (elevated IFN-γ secretion). The augmentation of lymphocyte proliferation was closely correlated to an increase in the number of lymphocyte cells including T-helper lymphocytes (CD4+), CD8+ T cells and activated PBMC, whereas elevation of IFN-γ secretion was due to the activated CD8+ T cells. The present chapter revealed the immunomodulating activity, which could be explained the traditional use of medicinal plant extract worldwide.