In contrast to anthropocentric readings of the Georgics, chapter 3 argues that Vergil is interested in farming as a way of considering the entangled lives of humans and nonhumans. The chapter contextualizes Vergil’s ecological thinking – highlighting influences from ancient philosophy, ethnography, Hesiod, and Roman agricultural treatises – and differentiates this reading from interpretations that shoehorn the relations of humans and nonhumans into a nature–culture binary. The chapter examines how the poem discloses agriculture as a practice of managing ecological relations. The second half of the chapter then queries the status of the human within its ecologies. While much of the poem denies human exceptionality, it does recognize ways in which humans stand out from the rest of the world, above all in their unparalleled ability to transform their environments – epitomized by the world-altering activities of Rome and Caesar. Ultimately, the chapter connects the peculiar status of the human to the didactic aims of the poem. By relaying and explaining the signa of the world, the Georgics offers the fantasy of an expertise that can better embed humans in their environments.

Chapter 2 analyses some foundational ideas relied upon in the book. This conceptual base comprises an analysis of nature, the environment, development, and sustainable development. These concepts are discussed as a progressive movement of a complex ideation: where nature is conceptualised as the starting point, later becomes the environment, then advances to become development, and is finally transformed into sustainable development. I employ Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) in my analysis of neo-imperial ideologies and allied Eurocentric philosophies and how these are embedded in the contemporary language of sustainable development. At each stage of the analysis, I highlight the significance of human agency as the defining character of the transformations that occur within this conceptual fluidity. It accounts for the persistence of the subtext of Eurocentrism and demonstrates how the interplay of law, politics, ethics, and history as sustainable development is established upon different elements of both law and non-law theories. The analysis in this chapter is refracted through ’Afrosensitivity’, which I describe as a reaction to Africa as a conceptual tool in sustainable development discourse, and as a conscious, alternative route for imprinting African legal cosmologies on this global phenomenon called sustainable development.

‘Early Christian Philosophers on Concepts’ by George Karamanolis integrates some of the themes encountered in previous chapters into the broad theological perspective of the early Christian thinkers, according to which explorations in every area of philosophy are ultimately intended to reveal aspects of God’s relation to His creation. It is argued that the position of the early Christian philosophers on concepts is part of their perceptual realism and their stance against scepticism. Karamanolis examines three case studies: the theories of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. In all three cases, he maintains, concepts are treated both as mental representations and semantic/linguistic items through which we grasp reality. Clement develops his view on concepts in the context of an anti-sceptical elaboration of his thesis that knowledge of the world is propositional and attainable by humans, while Origen and Gregory of Nyssa defend more sophisticated theories of concepts in connection with their respective epistemologies. In every case a theological question motivates the Christian author’s stance with regard to the nature and formation of concepts.

Through textually grounded "reverse engineering" of Sun Tzu’s ideas, this study challenges widely held assumptions. Sun Tzu is more straightforward, less "crafty," than often imagined. The concepts are more structural, less aphoristic. The fourteen themes approach provides a way of addressing Sun Tzu’s tendency to speak to multiple, often shifting, audiences at once ("multivocality"). It also sheds light on Sun Tzu’s limitations, including a pervasive zero-sum mentality; focus mostly on conventional warfare; a narrow view of human nature. Sun Tzu’s enduring value is best sought in the text’s extensive attention to warfare’s information aspects, where Sun Tzu made timeless contributions having implications for modern information warfare and especially its human aspects (e.g., algorithm sabotage by subverted insiders). The text points opportunities for small, agile twenty-first-century strategic actors to exploit cover provided by modern equivalents to Sun Tzu’s "complex terrain" (digital systems, social networks, complex organizations, and complex statutes) to run circles around large, sluggish, established institutional actors, reaping great profit from applying Sun Tzu’s insights.

Through textually grounded "reverse engineering" of Sun Tzu’s ideas, this study challenges widely held assumptions. Sun Tzu is more straightforward, less "crafty," than often imagined. The concepts are more structural, less aphoristic. The fourteen themes approach provides a way of addressing Sun Tzu’s tendency to speak to multiple, often shifting, audiences at once ("multivocality"). It also sheds light on Sun Tzu’s limitations, including a pervasive zero-sum mentality; focus mostly on conventional warfare; a narrow view of human nature. Sun Tzu’s enduring value is best sought in the text’s extensive attention to warfare’s information aspects, where Sun Tzu made timeless contributions having implications for modern information warfare and especially its human aspects (e.g., algorithm sabotage by subverted insiders). The text points opportunities for small, agile twenty-first-century strategic actors to exploit cover provided by modern equivalents to Sun Tzu’s "complex terrain" (digital systems, social networks, complex organizations, and complex statutes) to run circles around large, sluggish, established institutional actors, reaping great profit from applying Sun Tzu’s insights.

Spermatogenesis is a complex process that ensures daily production of mature male gametes. The differentiation of spermatogonia stem cells into spermatozoa requires the unfolding of several events that are highly regulated in time and space. During spermatogenesis, which takes place inside the seminiferous tubules, germ cells undergo profound morphological rearrangement as can be observed by classical histological analysis of human testis specimens. Spermatogenesis also brings about the dramatic rearrangement of genetic makeover of developing germ cells including homologous recombination and changes in the epigenetic landscape. In this chapter the different phases of human spermatogenesis and cell types involved are described with an emphasis on their morphological arrangements. In parallel, an update on novel findings concerning the cycle of the seminiferous epithelium, the kinetic of spermatogonial compartment, and the implications of single-cell transcriptome analysis of testicular cells will be provided.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are psychiatric conditions that express by a wide range of symptoms. Current treatments are effective in controlling so-called positive symptoms (e.g., delusions or hallucinations) but are often less effective for negative symptoms (e.g., blunted affect and passive social withdrawal) as well as for cognitive impairments. Further, current anti-psychotics may induce several side-effects that limit use and patient adherence. Therefore, mechanistically novel anti-psychotics are urgently needed. Cannabidiol, a major cannabinoid of Cannabis sativa, has been investigated in both animal models for aspects of schizophrenia, clinical studies, and controlled trials. Animal studies have raised substantial evidence for cannabidiol’s anti-psychotic effects. While controlled clinical trials have shown mixed results, studies using cannabidiol at higher dosages have demonstrated its ability to ameliorate psychotic symptoms while showing a relatively benign side-effect profile. Although the currently available data is short of any proof justifying the registration of cannabidiol as an anti-psychotic at present, the data from phase II clinical trials justify further study of cannabidiol’s antipsychotic properties in controlled clinical trials to clarify its therapeutic value and safety profile, notably in long-term treatment. In addition, more insight into its mechanisms of action may broaden our understanding of new targets for treatment.

In contrast to Plato, Aristotle allowed and argued for the possibility that all human lives have some non-instrumental value. This valuation of life is premised on his teleological conception of nature: insofar as all human lives are natural ends of some sort, they are thus a good. However, this non-instrumental value of mere living is in itself not sufficient to make a life worth living. As in Plato, whether a life is lived well or badly is the decisive factor, and again the state of virtue or vice is the most important consideration. Vice makes a life worse than death, regardless of the other good things in it, but fully fledged virtue is not necessary for a life worth living. In contrast to those who are fully virtuous, other non-vicious humans may need other goods, or at least freedom from other bads, such as serious illness or grave misfortunes, to pass the threshold of a life worth living. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle is less optimistic about the chances of the non-educated elite having a life worth living, though he does not flatly deny that possibility.

In this chapter, a clear outline is presented for analyzing confusing or contentious rights issues in business dealings. The case of perilous shipbreaking practices is used to invite intuitions about the minimal rights and entitlements that are owed to workers. Positive rights, where actions must be taken, are distinguished from negative ones, where a firm may not interfere with preexisting rights. Human rights are further contrasted to privileges, which come about through a legal framework. Critically, privileges are liable to revocation at any time by legislation, whereas human rights exist outside the legal sphere. Actions by oil firms in the Niger Delta are discussed as examples of different attitudes to the rights of indigenous peoples. Whether sweatshops conditions are ever voluntary or acceptable is also examined. It is noted that some religious views emphasize the common good rather than individual welfare, and rights claims often reflect a Western perspective where personal choice is paramount. Subsequently, the question is asked whether nonhumans or the environment might be rights-holders. The concluding case assesses the notion of privacy and whether it is a human right or simply a legal construct in the internet age.

In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin sought to erase the hard border between humans and other animals. Attempts to define a human exception within nature persist, however, among evolutionary anthropologists as well as in popular histories of the human species. Darwin proposes a cultural rather than biological perfection of “humanity” through an evolution of the moral sense or conscience, which takes the form of a deliberative expansion of the sympathetic imagination to embrace other nations and races and, eventually, all sentient life. At the same time, Darwin predicts a future widening of the extinction gap between a more highly evolved human type and “lower” races and species. Extermination, seemingly at odds with a universal sympathy, provides its historical condition. The crux informs subsequent accounts of a revolutionary rather than evolutionary stage of human emergence, in which the enhancement of Homo sapiens’ social intelligence entails the extermination of other human populations.

The epilogue explores the evidence for dissection and anatomical literature in Late Antiquity. It addresses the seeming hiatus in anatomical activity after Galen, introducing the topic via Vesalius’ retrospective thoughts, which blame Galen’s enervating authority. It starts with fourth-century evidence, pictorial and textual, observing that Galen, while a dominant voice, was not the lone authority; major figures considered include Vindicianus, Nemesius of Emesa, Oribasius, and Gregory of Nyssa. It then turns to the fifth to seventh centuries, addressing the medical curriculum in Alexandria and the evidence from Stephanus of Athens and Paul of Aegina. Finally, it contrasts the absence of evidence for anatomical activity in the Late Antique West after the seventh century with the modest but more vibrant interest in the East, addressing the question of whether human dissection reemerged as an option in Byzantium in this period; major figures considered include Meletius, Theophilus Protospatharius, Michael Choniates, and George Tornikios. The epilogue ends with Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his Syriac and Arabic translations, representing the beginning of the next chapter in anatomical history.