Montaigne and Descartes’ practical understanding of wisdom: A new ground for ethics and anthropology

Since the 1970s and 1980s, Business Ethics has been studied and taught. This Ethics is usually “pragmatist” or “deontological,” but it can also be “realistic.” Ethics is part of Philosophy, which was classically called “love of wisdom,” but that definition and ethics itself changed since Early Modernity. Realistic Business Ethics – inspired by Aristotle and St. Thomas – has a metaphysical ground that highly differs from the modern metaphysical one. Associated with the “science of man” and the truth conceived as “something useful,” this metaphysics is conceived as pragmatist. Anthropology and economics – considered as social sciences – were born with Modernity and Enlightenment, respectively, in a context of changing philosophical paradigms but have gained prominence since the nineteenth century. Our aim is to briefly explain who are the authors and the key points that made this change possible. This illustrates the new way of understanding the man and his action from a moral and social perspective. With Montaigne and Descartes the science of truth is left behind as the science of man gains more attention. This implies that contemplation is substituted by a technical action of one self who knows itself as a free and individualist actor (subject) with own interests and passions. In Descartes we find the traits of the new wise man, what is his method, and how metaphysics, anthropology, and ethics are now articulated, that is, how and why this change from a contemplative wisdom to a pragmatic one occurred

D-Chiro-Inositol Glycans in Insulin Signaling and Insulin Resistance

Classical actions of insulin involve increased glucose uptake from the bloodstream and its metabolism in peripheral tissues, the most important and relevant effects for human health. However, nonoxidative and oxidative glucose disposal by activation of glycogen synthase (GS) and mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) remain incompletely explained by current models for insulin action. Since the discovery of insulin receptor Tyr kinase activity about 25 years ago, the dominant paradigm for intracellular signaling by insulin invokes protein phosphorylation downstream of the receptor and its primary Tyr phosphorylated substrates—the insulin receptor substrate family of proteins. This scheme accounts for most, but not all, intracellular actions of insulin. Essentially forgotten is the previous literature and continuing work on second messengers generated in cells in response to insulin. Treatment and even prevention of diabetes and metabolic syndrome will benefit from a more complete elucidation of cellular-signaling events activated by insulin, to include the actions of second messengers such as glycan molecules that contain D-chiro-inositol (DCI). The metabolism of DCI is associated with insulin sensitivity and resistance, supporting the concept that second messengers have a role in responses to and resistance to insulin