David McPherson

Effects of strychnine on fictive swimming in the lamprey: evidence for glycinergic inhibition, discrepancies with model predictions, and novel modulatory rhythms

Abstract1.Inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (ipsps) produced by two classes of interneurons, CC (contralateral and caudal projecting) and lateral interneurons, were tested for strychnine sensitivity using paired intracellular recordings in the lamprey spinal cord. The ipsps were partially blocked by 0.2–0.5 μM strychnine and were completely blocked by 5 μM strychnine. Thus, the ipsps may be glycinergic.2.These interneurons are key participants in a proposed circuit model for fictive swimming. A connectionisttype computer simulation of the model demonstrated that the cycle period of the network increased with decreasing ipsp strength.3.Application of strychnine (0.1–0.5 μM) to the spinal cord during fictive swimming induced by an excitatory amino acid increased cycle period, consistent with previous reports, but at odds with stimulation predictions.4.Strychnine also produced slow rhythmic modulation of fictive swimming (period = 12 s) which maintained left-right alternation and rostral-caudal coordination. Auto- and cross-correlation analyses revealed that the slow modulation was present in a weaker form in most control preparations during fictive swimming.5.Since the proposed model for the swimming pattern generator in the lamprey spinal cord does not predict the observed speeding with strychnine, nor the slow modulatory rhythm, it appears to be deficient in its present formulation.

Nietzsche, Cosmodicy, and the Saintly Ideal

In this essay I examine Nietzsches shifting understanding of the saintly ideal with an aim to bringing out its philosophical importance, particularly with respect to what I call the problem of ‘cosmodicy’, i.e., the problem of justifying life in the world as worthwhile in light of the prevalent reality of suffering. In his early account Nietzsche understood the saint as embodying the supreme achievement of a self-transcending ‘feeling of oneness and identity with all living things’, while in his later account he viewed the saint as a representative of an unhealthy, life-denying ‘ascetic ideal’. This shift, I contend, is due in large part to Nietzsches development of an ‘ethic of power’ as part of his turn against Schopenhauers ethic of compassion, which needs to be seen in light of his ongoing effort to articulate and defend an adequate cosmodicy. My ultimate aim in this essay is to read the earlier Nietzsche against the later Nietzsche – with the help of Dostoevskys novelistic depiction of the saintly ideal – and to suggest that when properly articulated the saintly ideal is able to provide a more adequate cosmodicy than that which is offered in Nietzsches ethic of power.

Homo Religiosus: Does Spirituality Have a Place in Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics?

In this article I seek to show the importance of spirituality for a neo-Aristotelian account of ‘the good life’. First, I lay out my account of spirituality. Second, I discuss why the issue of the place of spirituality in the good life has often either been ignored or explicitly excluded from consideration by neo-Aristotelians. I suggest that a lot turns on how one understands the ‘ethical naturalism’ to which neo-Aristotelians are committed. Finally, I argue that through a deeper exploration of the evaluative standpoint from within our human form of life as ‘meaning-seeking animals’ we can come to better appreciate the importance of spirituality for human beings throughout recorded history up to the present and why we can be described as homo religiosus.