The Enlightenment,Pyropolitics, and the Problem of Evil

Abstract

In this article I argue that the ideal of rationality espoused by the European Enlightenment hinges on the separation of the light of reason from heat, with which it had been conjoined in the classical element of fire at least since the Greek antiquity. As a result, evil, from the standpoint of the Enlightenment is tantamount to heat without light, while evil, critically viewed outside this tradition, inheres in the absolute separation between the two aspects of the life-giving, albeit ineluctably dangerous, fire.     

Historical Development of the Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia

This review examines the history of discoveries that contributed to development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. The origin of the hypothesis is traced to the recognition that neuroleptic drugs interfere with brain dopamine function. This insight was derived from two distinct lines of research. The first line originated from the discovery in 1956 that reserpine depletes brain serotonin. This finding resulted in a sequence of studies that led to the discovery that brain dopamine is involved in neuroleptic-induced extrapyramidal motor disturbances. The second line of research was aimed at determining the mechanism of action of psychomotor stimulants. This research produced evidence that stimulants directly or indirectly activate brain dopamine receptors. Because nonreserpine neuroleptics such as chlorpromazine block stimulant-induced movement, these findings suggested that neuroleptics were dopamine antagonists. Most previous accounts of the development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia emphasize the first line of research and ignore the second.     

The Temperature Response in the Ring Widths of Phyllocladus Aspleniifolius (Celery–top Pine) Along an Altitudinal Gradient in the Warra LTER Area,Tasmania

The temperature response of four Phyllocladus aspleniifolius (Celery–top Pine) sites along an altitudinal gradient within a cool temperate broad leaf forest environment in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia was examined. Although strong evidence of a systematically changing response with elevation could not be found, there was evidence that minimum temperature in particular may be important in determining the altitudinal extent of the species. Climatic responses of the Warra LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) area sites were representative of other known sites in southwestern Tasmania. A link between event years in P. aspleniifolius and warm/dry conditions indicates that these event years may provide a guide to the historical frequency of fire weather in Tasmania’s southwest.     

Reconstruction of Fire History Using ‘Dry’ Sediments,An Approach for Microcharcoal Studies from the Sierras Pampeanas,NW Argentina

A new accessible and easy method for studying past fire events using ‘dry sediments’ is presented. The method was developed for analysing samples from 17 locations in the Ambato Valley, NW Argentina, to study fire regimes in the area. Based on earlier researchers’ methods, guidelines to use microcharcoals in ‘dry’ sediments as a palaeoenvironmental proxy are provided. The procedures outlined include sampling/extraction in the field, preparations of the samples, laboratory analysis and quantification of the samples. The new approach was useful to meet the objectives and answer the questions initially proposed in our research about past fire regimes affecting the past Aguada society.     

‘Startling; Nay,Almost Repulsive’: Light Effects and Nascent Sensation in John Everett Millais’s The Rescue

Taking Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais’s The Rescue (1855) as a case study of shifting aesthetic and moral frameworks, the essay investigates the ways in which mid-century British debates regarding the proper representation of light effects illuminate anxieties about a physically embodied viewer, one who encountered pictures in individualized ways that required regulation and guidance. Represented light, as an element that had a measurable effect on the senses, clearly stimulated a physical response and therefore brought the body to the fore in the art encounter. Types of painting that forcefully engaged the somatic self could become suspect and consequently subject to a process by which they were designated as ‘sensation’, a category in fraught relation with the disappearing ‘sublime’. Combining close visual analysis, a discussion of The Rescue’s novel subject matter, remarks by its first beholders, and nineteenth-century aesthetic theory, the article reflects on the ways in which discourses of art revealed anxieties about the formation of the modern subject and argues that The Rescue is a node in which the death of the sublime meets the birth of sensation.