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THE AUTHOR PROVIDES A THEMATIC RECONSTRUCTION OF HEGEL'S POSITIVE CONCEPT OF RIGHT. AGAINST THOSE WHO CHARGE THAT HEGEL DENIES ANY ROLE TO SUBSTANTIVE POLITICAL EVALUATION, HE ARGUES THAT THE "PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT" ARTICULATES A NOTION OF THE RIGHT TO RECOGNITION AS THE CENTRAL FEATURE OF THE MODERN STATE. THE CONCEPT OF RECOGNITION REQUIRES NOT JUST TOLERATION OF OTHERS BUT A MORE ROBUST NOTION OF RESPECT FOR THE "FREE PERSONALITY" THAT IS THE PHILOSOPHICAL GROUND OF RIGHT. THE RIGHT TO RECOGNITION IS, FURTHERMORE, INTENDED TO PROVIDE THE FOUNDATION OF A NEW FORM OF ETHICAL LIFE, HEGEL'S MODERN ANALOGUE TO CLASSICAL CONCEPTIONS OF CIVIC VIRTURE. THE AUTHOR ALSO BRIEFLY EXAMINES TWO OBJECTIONS THAT STAND IN THE WAY OF A CONTEMPORARY REHABILITATION OF HEGELIAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

ACCORDING TO SOME OF ITS PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES, LIBERALISM TAKES NO POSITION ON QUESTIONS REGARDING THE HUMAN GOOD; ITS CONCERNS ARE INSTRUMENTAL OR PROCEDURAL. CRITICS SUBMIT THAT NO SOCIETY IS ACTUALLY EVER NEUTRAL ON SUCH QUESTIONS AND THAT IT IS THEREFORE BETTER TO BE SELFCONSCIOUS ABOUT THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD WHICH IS BEING TACITLY PROMOTED. SMITH CONSIDERS ARISTOTLE'S POLITICAL SCIENCE AS THE LOCUS CLASSICUS OF THE VIEW THAT POLITICAL LIFE CAN BE JUSTIFIED ONLY WITH REFERENCE TO SOME STANDARD OF HUMAN FLOURISHING AND GOOD CHARACTER. HE ARGUES ALSO THAT ARISTOTLE'S CONCEPTION OF NOBILITY IS MUCH MORE REALISTIC THAN HIS DETRACTORS MAY HAVE LED SOME OF US TO BELIEVE.

An examination & critique of three theses concerning Karl Marx's base & superstructure: (1) the fundamentalist thesis, which regards base & superstructure as externally or causally connected; (2) the internal relatedness thesis, which sees them as mutually determining or dialectically related; & (3) the overdetermination thesis, which attempts to conceptualize some degree of autonomy for the superstructure while still according a determination "in the last instance" to the base. The appropriateness of this base & superstructure model for the conduct of social inquiry is discussed. In Philosophical Issues in the Study of Historical Materialism, Robert Grafstein (U of Georgia, Athens) accepts Smith's criticism of Bertell Ollman, but finds that his objection to Louis Althusser's & Etienne Balibar's understanding of determination needs to be qualified or developed in greater detail. His criticism of G. A. Cohen is at times similarly underdeveloped, & at other times inaccurate. In Historical Materialism Reconsidered, Steven B. Smith rejects Grafstein's claim that Marxism is a "particular empirical theory" that "needs fetishism of a sort" as false, arguing that historical materialism is a critical or dialectical theory that differs in kind from fetishizing theories of the scientific type. The truth of historical materialism is seen to be vouchsafed by both the empirical accuracy of its predictions & its ability to articulate the real or rational interests of the economic agents to whom it is addressed. 35 References. Modified HA.

THE AUTHOR REJECTS GRAFSTEIN'S CLAIM THAT MARXISM IS A "PARTICULAR EMPIRICAL THEORY" THAT "NEEDS FETISHISM OF A SORT" AS FALSE, ARGUING THAT HISTORICAL MATERIALISM IS A CRITICAL OR DIALECTICAL THEORY THAT DIFFERS IN KIND FROM FETISHIZING THEORIES OF THE SCIENTIFIC TYPE. THE AUTHOR ARGUES FURTHER THAT THE TRUTH OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM IS VOUCHSAFED NOT MERELY BY THE EMPIRICAL ACCURACY OF ITS PREDICTIONS BUT BY ITS ABILITY TO ARTICULATE THE REAL OR RATIONAL INTERESTS OF THE ECONOMIC AGENTS TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED.

[EN] To our knowledge, we have developed a novel temperature-jump optical tweezers setup that changes the temperature locally and rapidly. It uses a heating laser with a wavelength that is highly absorbed by water so it can cover a broad range of temperatures. This instrument can record several force-distance curves for one individual molecule at various temper- atures with good thermal and mechanical stability. Our design has features to reduce convection and baseline shifts, which have troubled previous heating-laser instruments. As proof of accuracy, we used the instrument to carry out DNA unzipping experi- ments in which we derived the average basepair free energy, entropy, and enthalpy of formation of the DNA duplex in a range of temperatures between 5 C and 50 C. We also used the instrument to characterize the temperature-dependent elasticity of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), where we find a significant condensation plateau at low force and low temperature. Oddly, the persistence length of ssDNA measured at high force seems to increase with temperature, contrary to simple entropic models. ; The authors thank J. Camunas and S. Frutos for contributing the molecules used in the experiments, and J.M. Huguet for helpful discussion. F.R. is supported by grant Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats Academia 2013 and J.R. A.-G. by an Explora grant from MINECO (MAT2013-49455-EXP). The research that led to the results presented here was funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant 308850 INFERNOS and European Research Council grant MagReps (No. 267862). ; De Lorenzo, S.; Ribezzi-Crivellari, M.; Arias-Gonzalez, JR.; Smith, S.; Ritort, F. (2015). A Temperature-Jump Optical Trap for Single-Molecule Manipulation. Biophysical Journal. 108(12):2854-2864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2015.05.017 ; S ; 2854 ; 2864 ; 108 ; 12