Self-criticism is a trait associated with increased psychopathology, but self-criticism is also a personality state reflecting an action that people do in moments of time. In the current study, we explored factors associated with heightened self-criticism in daily life. Participants (N = 197) received five random prompts per day for one week on their mobile phones, where they reported their current affect (negative and positive affect), willpower self-efficacy, distress intolerance, degree of support and criticism from others, current context (location, activity, (...) hunger, tiredness) and momentary self-criticism. We first demonstrated that self-criticism varies over time and across contexts, and is associated with heightened trait self-criticism. Then, using multilevel modelling, we explored the contextual factors associated with greater self-criticism. We found that self-criticism was higher when people were at home, and more tired. We also found higher self-criticism to be associated with greater negative and lower positive affect, greater distress intolerance, lower willpower and greater perceived criticism from others. In addition, self-criticism predicted subsequent distress intolerance, willpower and positive affect in lagged analyses. This study provides evidence that both environmental and psychological factors are associated with the dynamics of self-critical thoughts. (shrink)

This is the first article in a two-part series describing subject and family perspectives from the central thalamic deep brain stimulation for the treatment of traumatic brain injury using the Medtronic PC + S first-in-human invasive neurological device trial to achieve cognitive restoration in moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, with subjects who were deemed capable of providing voluntary informed consent. In this article, we report on interviews conducted prior to surgery wherein we asked participants about their experiences recovering from (...) brain injury and their perspectives on study enrollment and participation. We asked how risks and benefits were weighed, what their expectations and fears were, and how decisions were reached about trial participation. We found that informed consent and enrollment decisions are fraught. Subjects and families were often split, with subjects more focused on putative benefits and families concerned about incremental risk. Both subjects and families viewed brain injury as disruptive to personal identity and relationships. As decisions were made about study enrollment, families struggled with recognizing the re-emergent agency of subjects and ceding decision-making authority to subjects who had previously been dependent upon them for protection and guidance. Subjects and family members reported a hope for the relief of cognitive disabilities, improved quality of life, normalization of interpersonal interactions, and a return to work or school as reasons for study participation, along with altruism and a desire to advance science. Despite these aspirations, both subjects and families appreciated the risks of the intervention and did not suffer from a therapeutic misconception. A second essay to be published in the next issue of Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics—Clinical Neuroethics will describe interviews conducted after surgery, the effects of cognitive restoration for subjects, families, and challenges presented to the social structures they will call upon to support them through recovery. This subsequent article will be available online prior to its formal publication in October 2023. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Michelangelo Antonioni, in his first full-length colour feature, Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso, 1964), uses cinematic language to explore what contemporary psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, decades later, has called the crisis of primary narcissism, one of the 'new maladies' afflicting the modern subject, that she describes in Tales of Love (1983). In examining the struggles of subject formation, Antonioni poetically describes the devastating breakdown of both subjectivity and intersubjectivity in conditions of late modernity that Kristeva (...) details through her own psychoanalytic account. Into Antonioni's infamous statement 'Eros is sick', we can read Kristeva's suggestion that Narcissus, our capacity for love and loss, separateness and idealization—the very foundation for our being with others—is in a state of serious affliction. Through the trials of his main protagonist, Giuliana, Antonioni reveals that the acquisition of a distinct, differentiated identity, one that allows the subject to establish and maintain meaningful relationships and ethical bonds, without the risk of psychic disintegration, has become highly problematic—reaching the level of a collective crisis, rather than remaining an issue of individual illness. For Antonioni, psychic survival in the modern world is not merely a question of seamless integration, but a form of (dis)adaptation: the recognition of severance and of separation, both from nature and our own nature, that allows one to affirm her environment and act as an responsive agent in the world, without being overwhelmed or engulfed by otherness, or alterity. In Kristeva's terms, this involves the capacity to bear and, even, to creatively elaborate, the necessity of loss and separation from the primal (m)other—a painful process to which Giuliana eventually submits. (shrink)

The three important target articles make a strong case for regarding racism as a public health crisis. Each calls for advocacy by the bi...

Western democracy is now at a critical juncture. Some worry that power has been wrested from the people and placed in the hands of a small political elite. Others argue that the democratic system gives too much power to a populace that is largely ill-informed and easily swayed by demagogues. This classic study of democratic principles is thus now more relevant than ever. A renowned historian of antiquity and political philosophy, Sir M.I. Finley offers a comparative analysis of Greek and (...) modern conceptions of democracy. As he puts the ancient Greeks in dialogue with their contemporary counterparts, Finley tackles some of the most pressing issues of our day, including public apathy, partisanship, consensus politics, distrust of professional politicians, and the limits of free speech. Including three lectures that Finley delivered at Rutgers University, plus two additional essays that further illuminate his thinking, _Democracy Ancient and Modern _explores the dramatic differences between the close-knit civil society of the ancient Greeks and our own atomized mass societies. By mapping out democracy’s past and its present manifestations, this book helps us plot a course for democracy’s future. (shrink)

Both society and plasma (ionized gas) fluid are composed of active, interactive, and free, individuals. These individuals are responded to any internal and external effects (fields for plasma), and exhibit collective behaviour. According to this structure, there are a wide range of similarities between the plasma fluid and the society. The nature of fluidity of plasma arises from the interaction of its free interactive charges, so the society may behave as a fluid owing to the free interactive individuals. This fluid (...) model may explain many social phenomena like social instability, diffusion, flow, viscosity...So the society behaves as a sort of intellectual fluid. (shrink)

In his consideration of thought development August Comte has been proposed a three stage model of thinking development. The way that led to any new type of think may repeat itself to produce another new type. So the way that led to philosophy of science may be repeated. It perhaps to attribute the mechanism of thought evolution to a process of accumulation of unanswered questions which is flowed by a declination in that type of thinking interest. One can say that (...) the accumulation of unverified huge new physics theories and ideas; leads to a declination in physics interest and that may lead to a new type of philosophy. The proposed new type is the philosophy of technology, and probably can be considered as the fourth stage according to Comte model. (shrink)

Background The post-trial period is the time period after the end of study drug administration. It is unclear whether post-trial arrangements for patient surveillance are routinely included in study protocols and consents, and whether research ethics boards (REB) consider the post-trial period. Objectives The objective was to determine whether trial protocols and consent forms reviewed by the REB describe procedures for post-trial period surveillance. Methods An observational study of protocols of randomised trials of chronic therapies for cardiac conditions, approved by (...) the REB of two academic institutions affiliated with the University of Toronto in Canada (University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital) from 1995 to 2007. Plans for patient surveillance in the post-trial period described in the protocol or in the consent form before and after REB approval were recorded. Results 42 studies were identified including 18 heart failure and 15 coronary artery disease trials. Only four studies planned a clinical visit after trial termination, and an additional three planned a telephone contact after trial completion. Five trials submitted consent forms to the REB with a discussion of the post-trial period. Conclusions The majority of protocols and consent forms did not discuss plans for post-trial period surveillance. The post-trial period and the REB approval process could be improved by systematic follow-up being described in the protocol and consent form. The small number of trial protocols evaluated in the study may impair the degree to which the results can be generalised. (shrink)

The article presents the conceptualization of philosophical education, in the context of which the evolution of the development of society from informational to smart society takes place. The purpose of the article is to reveal the conceptualization of philosophical education in the context of the idea of a smart society and to show that philosophical education does not stand still but develops along with the development of science and technology, which requires the development of a conceptual and categorical apparatus. Research (...) objectives: to show the development of philosophical knowledge, in the context of which new innovative ideas are ripening; to reveal that the concept of a smart society is based on the expectation or belief in the ability of modern smart technologies to positively influence social processes and lead to a new qualitative state of all social life, which is called a smart society; to prove that much in solving all these problems depends on the state of education, including philosophical and ideological, not only developing our cognitive abilities, but also forming a responsible and demanding attitude to goal setting, the choice of basic life values. Analysis of recent research and publications, which presents a solution to this problem. We rely on the works of I.Ardashkin, V.Voronkova, M.Kastels, O.Kivlyuk, K.Korsak, A.Lazarevich, R.Oleksenko, O.Punchenko, which in one way or another reflected the problem of the formation of a smart society. The research methodology is the dialectical, historical, systemic, informational methods, which allowed to penetrate deeply into the evolution of philosophical knowledge that is not in mass, but develops with the development of science, technique and technology. The result of research - based smart society the development of information and computer technologies that lead to breakthrough technologies and innovative development It is noted that the proposed reorganization of the system of social-humanitarian education in the universities of the Republic of Belarus intended to raise to the level of philosophical training of domestic specialists. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to define the limits of technocentrism through the analysis of the limiting opportunities of technique and technology from certain value positions. Theoretical basis. The philosophical anthropology of Helmut Plessner was the research methodology. Originality. The institutional use of technology gives it the character of a social phenomenon and turns it into technology. The ability of individuals, which is aimed at achieving a certain goal with the help of certain sustainable techniques, is not yet technology (...) in itself but is only a certain author’s technique. Such subjectively acquired technique can be turned into socially used technology, otherwise, it will be lost. Technology is a technique that has gained recognition and has been mastered by those who did not invent it but used the algorithm proposed by the inventor, a detailed and functionally sound explanation, a method of constructing this technique. But the main thing is that technology is a technique that has received an acceptable justification for society. Conclusions. Technology is not only a means of achieving the goal, it is a way for a human being to transform the world. As such, technology is a component of human himself/herself and changes human – more precisely, a human being changed himself/herself with the help of technologies that he/she creates. However, this creates certain limits of such transformations: technology cannot replace humans in their ability to self-reproduce. Technology is always an element of social communication: the success of communication is interdependent on the success of the technology. Social modernization includes new technologies, but a more important component of social modernization is the new values for which these new technologies are created. Human evolution generates the technocratism at a certain stage. But to the extent that technocracy begins to contradict the values of humans and society, it loses its source of development – human creativity. (shrink)

Познавательная культура - системная совокупность исторически специфических средств и приемов, методов и форм, традиций и новаций, идеалов и критериев, норм и предрассудков и т.п. элементов интеллектуального творчества индивидуального или коллективного субъекта, приобщения его к результатам познания, социальным и культурным ценностям. Содержательные составляющие познавательной культуры характеризуют как уровень и степень развития теоретической, научной деятельности, так и ненаучного, вненаучного, повседневного и обыденного познания, фиксируя определенный этап развития духовных творческих способностей личности или социума, обеспечивающих и обслуживающих их познавательное отношение к действительности. Речь идет (...) об особенностях деятельности людей по производству, хранению, трансляции и материализации знаний. (shrink)