There seems to be a broad agreement that curiosity is important in education. However, current research often seeks to answer the question of how best to nurture curiosity and fails to ask the normative question of why this should be done. A closer look reveals that the reasons for justifying the importance of curiosity vary, with some theorists pointing to its role in cognitive development as a starting point for learning, and others praising it as an element of democracy and (...) a child’s right to participation. Most of these approaches understand curiosity as an individual urge or desire for knowledge. In contrast, this article will examine a relational understanding of the concept by focussing on social curiosity. Instead of following a cognitive developmentalist, intellectual virtue or emancipatory approach to valuing curiosity, I will employ relational ethical theory. The argument then explores a possible analogy between social curiosity and the concept of sovereign expressions of life, as developed by the Danish philosopher and theologian K.E. Løgstrup. By drawing on his relational ethics, the article aims to expand the theoretical grounds on which curiosity can be normatively legitimised in education. With children spending longer and longer hours in educational, structured and adult-led settings, I conclude with a twofold normative claim: Social curiosity should be a part of all relations in education and its absence should lead to an ethical demand. In addition, an awareness of the actual deeds through which social curiosity is realised is also a topic that must be addressed by educators. (shrink)

Background: This study examined the cyberbullying experience and coping manners of adolescents in urban Vietnam and explored the mediating effect of different support to the associations between cyberbullying and mental health issues.Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 484 students at four secondary schools. Cyberbullying experience, coping strategies, psychological problems, and family, peer, and teacher support were obtained. Structural equation modeling was utilized to determine the mediating effects of different support on associations between cyberbullying and psychological problems.Results: There were 11.6 (...) and 28.3% of students who reported that they experienced and observed at least one cyberbullying act in the last 3 months, respectively. Among the victims, only 48.2% tried to stop the perpetrators. Meanwhile, the majority of observers belonged to the “Intervene” group who tried to report cyberbullying acts or help victims. Family support was found to partially mediate associations between cyberbullying experience and observation with levels of psychological problems among adolescents.Conclusion: The 3-month rate of cyberbullying experience and observation among urban adolescents aged 11–14 was low. However, current coping strategies against cyberbullying were not sufficient. Family support is an important factor that should be considered for designing interventions to mitigating the impacts of cyberbullying on the mental health of adolescents. (shrink)

This study investigates the prevalence of ‘Seeking God's Help’, its relation to time since diagnosis, and its association with Life Satisfaction for all cancer types. This study also investigates Disease-Specific Quality of Life for patients with breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. Data were obtained from the third wave of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study of Norway, with 2,086 cancer patients identified by the Cancer Registry of Norway and 6,258 cancer-free controls. Our results indicate a higher prevalence of ‘Seeking God's Help’ after (...) a shorter time since diagnosis among men. No association was observed in multivariate analyses between ‘Seeking God's Help’ and ‘Life Satisfaction’ or ‘Disease-Specific QoL’ in long-term cancer survivors. Longitudinal investigations are needed to elucidate the relationship between the ‘Seeking God's Help’ variable and Life Satisfaction and Disease-Specific QoL among cancer patients in a Norwegian context. (shrink)

Published within weeks of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, Isabelle Duncan's Pre-Adamite Man (1860) is the first full-length treatment of preadamism by an evangelical. Intended as a reconciliation of Genesis and geology, Duncan's work gained immediacy when it was published shortly after the September 1859 revelations that men had walked among the mammoths. Written in the tradition of evangelical 'Christian philosophy', Pre-Adamite Man deploys innovative biblical hermeneutics and recent trends in geology to set out both a biblical preadamite theory, and (...) an unorthodox angelology. Duncan responded to contemporary secular interpretations of geology by pushing evangelical concordist strategies to new frontiers, filling out an acceptance of an ancient earth with new biblically informed catastrophist proposals and extensions of salvation history, while simultaneously retaining a firm commitment to plenary inspiration. The product is a highly readable book that operates both as an accessible treatment of geology and a theological discourse. Running through six printings between 1860 and 1866, the book was reviewed by many of the period's leading journals and created a minor controversy among evangelicals. This study both brings to life this previously neglected episode in scriptural geology, and adds to recent work on Victorian popular science writing. (shrink)

This essay seeks to clarify Gandhi's logic of self-suffering. Its inner accents have not received the attention they deserve. So I propose to emphasize them, though the context of such suffering and its impact on men too must be given due regard.

This book is comprised of a number of articles written by women on the impact of feminism on academic disciplines. Fundamental to feminism is the premise that women have been 'left out' of codified knowledge, so that the world has been explained in terms of men but not women. The contributors explore not only how this happened but why. They document, discipline by discipline, the gain that feminism has made in establishing alternative processes and alternative knowledge and the effect these (...) are having in modifying the academic curriculum. (shrink)

This study investigates the prevalence of ‘Seeking God’s Help’, its relation to time since diagnosis, and its association with Life Satisfaction for all cancer types. This study also investigates Disease-Specific Quality of Life for patients with breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. Data were obtained from the third wave of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study of Norway , with 2,086 cancer patients identified by the Cancer Registry of Norway and 6,258 cancer-free controls. Our results indicate a higher prevalence of ‘Seeking God’s Help’ (...) after a shorter time since diagnosis among men. No association was observed in multivariate analyses between ‘Seeking God’s Help’ and ‘Life Satisfaction’ or ‘Disease-Specific QoL’ in long-term cancer survivors. Longitudinal investigations are needed to elucidate the relationship between the ‘Seeking God’s Help’ variable and Life Satisfaction and Disease-Specific QoL among cancer patients in a Norwegian context. (shrink)

This article examines a productive use of communicating gender stereotypes in interpersonal conversation: to resist activities traditionally prescribed according to gender. The analyses video-taped naturally occurring US household interactions and present three techniques participants may deploy to contest gender expectations: mobilizing categories, motivating alignment and reframing action. We show how gender is an accountable category in relation to household labor, and how gender categories provide a resource by which participants can non-seriously solicit and resist participation in domestic gender-prescribed activities. Our (...) analysis provides some insight into how participants use gender stereotypes in everyday talk and what functions such talk serves. (shrink)

The present study investigates the importance of emotional disclosure and vulnerability in the production of hegemonic masculinities. Of particular interest is the role that silence and invisibility play in how men talk about recent stressful life events. One-on-one interviews with men who experienced a stressful life event in the past year illustrate how men often talk about these events in simultaneously visible and invisible ways. We use the term “cloudy visibility” to describe this engagement, identified both in terms of what (...) men articulate in relation to their past stressful experiences and how they articulate these experiences within the present moment of the interview. The conversational consequences of these linguistic devices are analyzed to illustrate how men obscure their inner emotional lives, thus reproducing hegemonic masculine ideals of staying strong and stoic in the face of adversity, while they also seek to make aspects of their inner lives seen and heard to an interviewer. (shrink)

Ethical challenges surrounding the implementation of male circumcision as an HIV prevention strategyResearchers have been exploring the possibility of a correlation between male circumcision and lowered risk of HIV infection almost since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.1 Results from a randomised controlled trial in South Africa in 2005 indicate that male circumcision protects men against the acquisition of HIV through heterosexual intercourse,2 confirming the findings from 20 years of observational studies.3 Circumcised men in the South African trial were (...) 60% less likely to acquire HIV than their uncircumcised counterparts. A mathematical modelling study, based on the South African trial, estimates that the practice of male circumcision could avert two million new HIV infections and 300 000 HIV-related deaths over the next 10 years in sub-Saharan Africa.4 More recently, two randomised controlled trials in Kisumu, Kenya and Rakai, Uganda showed, respectively, 53% and 48% reductions in HIV acquisition among circumcised men than uncircumcised men in the trial.5 These results strongly suggest that male circumcision could play an important role in the struggle against the continued rise in new HIV infections. However, as observers noted at the 2006 XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, excitement about the potential epidemiological impact has overshadowed the debate over the difficult translation of research on male circumcision, into policy and practice.6 Similar calls for caution have been raised before and elsewhere.7,8The topic of male circumcision carries an enormous amount of ethical baggage. Male infants, worldwide, are circumcised for various medical, social and/or religious reasons. Circumcision is a cultural act and a surgical procedure; medical reasons are not the only reasons to circumcise that people have found and continue to find as compelling. Benatar and Benatar9 have argued that—when …. (shrink)

A clearly written book that purports to analyze "the ends men pursue, and the ways in which these ends are ordered in some kind of system." The driving force behind the analysis is the attempt to present ends, or at least some important ends, as complex entities having a discernible and significant structure, and then to present the priorities, preferences, and relationships that men impose on their ends as themselves constituting a complex, coherent structure, whose principles of ordering may be (...) discerned and criticized. Part one deals with the structure and ordering of ends and reflects the influence of Kant and Rawls. Part two deals with rational ends and social structures, and part three with life and death as values. Of great practical interest are certain concepts such as life plan and budget risk in dealing with the problems of life and death. The book repays careful study.--A. S. C. (shrink)

This article reintroduces a phenomenological experiment designed in the early 1960’s, The Alien-Hand Experiment (TAHE), and it illustrates how phenomena denoted by theoretical concepts like body image, body schema and agency can be studied via the experiment. An analysis of the verbal reports from 26 subjects who participated in TAHE is presented in this article. Subjects were divided into three groups: A group of non-bulimic men, a group of non-bulimic women and a group of female bulimics. The group of (female) (...) bulimics was studied due to the widely spread notion that subjects suffering from eating disorders have a distorted body image. TAHE can be thought of as both a qualitative and quantitative way to study the phenomena arising when the normal relationship between motor behaviour and body experience is disrupted. The present investigation is not an operational definition of body schema and body image, but the two concepts offer a useful interpretive framework. (shrink)

Background: In Switzerland, non-medical right-to-die organisations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas offer suicide assistance to members suffering from incurable diseases. Objectives: First, to determine whether differences exist between the members who received assistance in suicide from Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas. Second, to investigate whether the practices of Exit Deutsche Schweiz have changed since the 1990s. Methods: This study analysed all cases of assisted suicide facilitated by Exit Deutsche Schweiz (E) and Dignitas (D) between 2001 and 2004 and (...) investigated by the University of Zurich’s Institute of Legal Medicine (E: n = 147; D: n = 274, total: 421). Furthermore, data from the Exit Deutsche Schweiz study which investigated all cases of assisted suicide during the period 1990–2000 (n = 149) were compared with the data of the present study. Results: More women than men were assisted in both organisations (D: 64%; E: 65%). Dignitas provided more assistance to non-residents (D: 91%; E: 3%; p = 0.000), younger persons (mean age in years (SD): D: 64.5 (14.1); E: 76.6 (13.3); p = 0.001), and people suffering from fatal diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (D: 79%; E: 67%; p = 0.013). Lethal medications were more often taken orally in cases assisted by Dignitas (D: 91%; E: 76%; p = 0.000). The number of women and the proportion of older people suffering from non-fatal diseases among suicides assisted by Exit Deutsche Schweiz has increased since the 1990s (women: 52% to 65%, p = 0.031; mean age in years (SD): 69.3 (17.0) to 76.9 (13.3), p = 0.000), non-fatal diseases: 22% to 34%, p = 0.026). Conclusions: Weariness of life rather than a fatal or hopeless medical condition may be a more common reason for older members of Exit Deutsche Schweiz to commit suicide. The strong over-representation of women in both Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas suicides is an important phenomenon so far largely overlooked and in need of further study. (shrink)

Background: In Switzerland, non-medical right-to-die organisations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas offer suicide assistance to members suffering from incurable diseases.Objectives: First, to determine whether differences exist between the members who received assistance in suicide from Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas. Second, to investigate whether the practices of Exit Deutsche Schweiz have changed since the 1990s.Methods: This study analysed all cases of assisted suicide facilitated by Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas between 2001 and 2004 and investigated by the University (...) of Zurich’s Institute of Legal Medicine. Furthermore, data from the Exit Deutsche Schweiz study which investigated all cases of assisted suicide during the period 1990–2000 were compared with the data of the present study.Results: More women than men were assisted in both organisations. Dignitas provided more assistance to non-residents, younger persons : D: 64.5 ; E: 76.6 ; p = 0.001), and people suffering from fatal diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Lethal medications were more often taken orally in cases assisted by Dignitas. The number of women and the proportion of older people suffering from non-fatal diseases among suicides assisted by Exit Deutsche Schweiz has increased since the 1990s : 69.3 to 76.9, p = 0.000), non-fatal diseases: 22% to 34%, p = 0.026).Conclusions: Weariness of life rather than a fatal or hopeless medical condition may be a more common reason for older members of Exit Deutsche Schweiz to commit suicide. The strong over-representation of women in both Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas suicides is an important phenomenon so far largely overlooked and in need of further study. (shrink)

This study examines social desirability bias in the context of ethical decision-making by accountants. It hypothesizes a negative relation between social desirability bias and ethical evaluation. It also predicts an interaction effect between religiousness and gender on social desirability bias. An experiment using five general business vignettes was carried out on 121 accountants (63 males and 58 females). The results show that social desirability bias is higher (lower) when the situation encountered is more (less) unethical. The bias has religiousness and (...) gender main effects as well as an interaction effect between these two independent variables. Women who were more religious recorded the highest bias scores relative to less religious women and men regardless of their religiousness. (shrink)

ISBN-13: 978-1934074480
Plot Summary from the book:
"An aristocratic young man, fed up with his studies, contemplates military service. His teacher is unable by any reasoning to call him back him from the path he has embarked upon. The young man enlists another youth who commits himself to the journey, dressed in military garb, and he happens upon two deserting soldiers, unsightly and ill-used both in their dress and in their hygiene. Both young men are so moved by the (...) deserters’ remarks deploring and reviling their lot in life that they return to their studies. One of the deserters, however, hopes to be welcomed back by the wife and small children he had deserted and left penniless and bereft of friends. She gives him a nasty reception, with verbal and corporal abuse, and he barely manages to have his sin forgiven and to return to her good graces."
From the Table of Contents:
Introduction
How to Use this Book
Jacobus Pontanus: Biography
Jesuit Comedy – Seriously?
The Stratocles as a Spiritual Exercise
Just War and the Morality of Military Service
A Play about War and the Real Wars of Pontanus' Time
The Characters and Their Names
Pontanus’ Use of Classical Sources
The History of the Text of Stratocles
Performance
Stratocles or War
Endnotes
Appendices
Pontanus on Humanist Studies
Pontanus on Writing Comedy
Renaissance School Hazing, called “Deposition”
Anonymous: Instructions for Deposition
Dialogue on Hazing (Progymnasma 100)
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The article investigates whether Hobbes’s political theory gives us reason to expect the systematic subordination of women. It argues that who dominates whom is a matter of victory in the quest to pull allies into ordered alliances. The primary means of gaining allies—force and wiles—depend on both skill-fitness and affective fitness. The analyses suggest that it is sex-linked and gender-linked differences in affective fitness—particularly in the intensity of men’s desire to use religious wiles—that most plausibly explain the subjection of women, (...) both across the spectrum of states of nature and within civil societies. Although Hobbes’s political theory enables us to make sense of how it happened, there is nothing in that theory that either necessitates or should cause us to expect the systematic subordination of women. (shrink)

Treatment of diseases of the brain by drugs or surgery necessitates an understanding of its structure and functions. The philosophical neurosurgeon soon encounters difficulties when localising the abstract concepts of mind and soul within the tangible 1300-gram organ containing 100 billion neurones. Hippocrates had focused attention on the brain as the seat of the mind. The tabula rasa postulated by Aristotle cannot be localised to a particular part of the brain with the confidence that we can localise spoken speech to (...) Broca's area or the movement of limbs to the contralateral motor cortex. Galen's localisation of imagination, reasoning, judgement and memory in the cerebral ventricles collapsed once it was evident that the functional units-neurones-lay in the parenchyma of the brain. Experiences gained from accidental injuries (Phineas Gage) or temporal lobe resection (William Beecher Scoville); studies on how we see and hear and more recent data from functional magnetic resonance studies have made us aware of the extensive network of neurones in the cerebral hemispheres that subserve the functions of the mind. The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain. When the deeper parts of the brain came within the reach of neurosurgeons, the brainstem proved exceptionally delicate and vulnerable. The concept of brain death after irreversible damage to it has made all of us aware of 'the cocktail of brain soup and spark' in the brainstem so necessary for life. If there be a soul in each of us, surely, it is enshrined here. (shrink)

Women’s fertility is the focus of most demographic analyses, for in most mammals, and in many preindustrial societies, variance in male fertility, while an interesting biological phenomenon, is irrelevant. Yet in monogamous societies, the reproductive ecology of men, as well as that of women, is important is creating reproductive patterns. In nineteenth-century Sweden, the focus of this study, male reproductive ecology responded to resource conditions: richer men had more children than poorer men. Men’s fertility also interacted with local and historical (...) factors in complex ways to have significant impact on population growth. As a result, “the” demographic transition was local, and locally reversible, in Sweden. Results cannot be simply translated from nineteenth-century studies to current attempts to promote fertility decline, because today, male and female resource-fertility curves differ in shape, not only in magnitude. When we translate studies of fertility decline, it is important to study individual fertility and to discern whether, in any particular case, male and female patterns are similar. (shrink)

The last decades of research have consistently found strong associations between divorce and adverse health outcomes among adults. However, limitations of a majority of this research include lack of “real-time” research, i.e., research employing data collected very shortly after juridical divorce where little or no separation periods have been effectuated, research employing thoroughly validated and population-normed measures against which study results can be compared, and research including a comprehensive array of previously researched sociodemographic- and divorce-related variables. The current cross-sectional study, (...) including 1,856 recently divorced Danes, was designed to bridge these important gaps in the literature. Mental and physical health were measured using the Short Form 36 -2. Analyses included correlational analyses, t-test comparisons, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The study found that the health-related quality of life of Danish divorcees was significantly worse than the comparative background population immediately following divorce. Across gender, higher levels of divorce conflict were found to predict worse mental health, and worse physical health for women, even when controlling for other socio-demographic variables and divorce characteristics. Among men, lower age and higher income predicted better physical health, while more children, more previous divorces, participant divorce initiation, new partner status, and lower levels of divorce conflict predicted better mental health. Among women, higher income, fewer previous divorces, new partner status, and lower levels of divorce conflict predicted better physical health while higher income, participant divorce initiation, new partner status, and lower levels of divorce conflict predicted better mental health. The findings underscore the relevance of providing assistance to divorcees who experience higher levels of divorce conflict immediately following divorce, in seeking to reduce potential long-term negative health effects of divorce. (shrink)

Though there is a vast literature on performances of drag, performances of gender and sexual transgressions outside of drag clubs are less studied. This case study of men’s marches protesting violence against women—“Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” marches— examines the politics of such transgressions. Cross-dressing to various degrees is strategically utilized at these events in an attempt to encourage men to become empathetic allies. This article suggests, however, that context is critical to the political potential of performances of drag. (...) The author’s observations of the interactions at the marches suggest that drag at “Walk a Mile” marches often symbolically reproduces gender and sexual inequality despite good intentions. At these marches, feminism is gendered when performances of politics and protest are contextually framed as gender and/or sexual transgressions when “feminism” is understood as “feminine.”. (shrink)

This study replicates and extends previous work by Oppenheimer and Wiesner [1990, Sex discrimination: Who is hired and do employment equity statements make a difference? Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, Personnel and Human Resources Division], and examined the effects of minority qualifications on hiring decisions, the effects of employment equity directives when minority candidates are less qualified and the effects of different types and strengths of employment equity directives on hiring decisions. The (...) results indicate that when employment equity is in place, people are increasingly more likely to hire underrepresented group members, to the extent that they are more qualified. Men appear to be treated in a positively biased manner, and are more likely to be hired when they are less qualified. Women are less likely to be hired when they are under-qualified, and in the absence of employment equity directives or when there is a suggestion that women are underrepresented. Moreover, when employment equity directives are strengthened, there appears to be a subtle backlash for women but not for men. (shrink)

Defends "The New Men's Studies: From Feminist Theory to Gender Scholarship" (Hypatia 2:1, Winter 1987) against what is argued are Mary Libertin's misreadings. The argument for men's studies is logically independent of though related to the debate about essentialism in women's studies. Men's studies studies men in and as particular groups. Intellectual should not be equated with institutional autonomy. The feminist study of men should be supported by feminist scholars.

The paper situates the new field of men's studies in the context of the evolution of women's studies. It argues that men's studies' distinctive feminist approach to men is a necessary complement to women's studies, citing paradigmatic examples of new perspectives. In tracing women's studies' development, the paper argues that reconceptualizations of "gender" resolve tensions between much of women's studies' non-essentialist empirical social science describing "sex roles" and much of feminist theory's essentialist (...) celebrations of women's core selves. (shrink)

This book attempts to understand the conditions under which men obey in those situations in which there is no obvious return or satisfaction for their obedience. This obedience, it is argued, is based on men's needs to "control" the more remote environment or polity, not to control other men directly. This control is based on an indirect reciprocal relationship between man and the polity. After an initial conceptual clarification of this concept of control, the author goes on to an (...) explanation of methods of control, instruments of control, and response to control. In so doing he argues that the concepts of "control" and "persuasion" are more useful than those of power and authority, as the former are dynamic and concern themselves with reciprocal acts, not static concepts suggesting the possessions of specific things.—S. W. (shrink)

Clinical Pharmacology is a specialty with many attributes and our association with the subject has allowed us to acquire, apply and disseminate myriad aspects of research and practice. Though clinical pharmacologists are conspicuous by virtue of their small number, recent years have shown a growing need for the course. In the review below we navigate through several aspects of the subject as we encountered them from time to time. From critical appraisal of literature, to application of knowledge of drugs, to (...) clinical practice; moving on to clinical and basic research, to drug development process, to policy making - these are but a few of the many fields which constitute the scope of clinical pharmacology. The importance of the subject lies in allowing a trainee to develop a broad overview of the entire process, from drug generation to drug distribution to drug utilization, a process meant for the greater common goal of better health for all. We foresee a bright future for the subject though with a slight skepticism thrown in. In the present article, we make use of personal experiences and reference from literature to help you get a broad view of what clinical pharmacology means to us. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments RAILING AGAINST REALISM: PHILOSOPHY AND TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by S. P. ROSENBAUM The argument of Graheim Parkes's "Imagining Reality in To the Lighthouse" is described by its author as "a railing against the realist position" (p. 35) as he understands it primarily in my article "The Philosophical Reedism ofVirginia Woolf." ' Apart from the question of whemer railing is a useful way of conducting an inquiry (...) into literature and philosophy, Parkes's discussion raises several important issues about these connections. The way diey are raised, however, involves various mistedces and muddles that make a brief reply to his eurticle difficult. To begin with a small reveeding example, Parkes asserts that I miss the irony in Virginia Woolfs use of die letters P, Q, and R to describe Mr. Ramsay's problems of diought (p. 41). Here is what I wrote: "By representing Mr. Ramsay 's thinking as proceeding in die very genered form of conventional logical symbols, Virginia Woolf is wittily extending the standard letters used to symbolize die conditional type of argument, If P men Cf (p. 339, with italics added this time). Parkes's misreading of my text does not inspire confidence when he turns to Virginia Woolfs fiction or G. E. Moore's philosophy. On a more significant issue, Parkes complains that I boggle his mind by saying diat philosophically, Moore influenced Virginia Woolf more man anyone else, whereas Platonic ideas abound in her books (p. 35). Of course they do, but not very much in her epistemology, which was the subject of my eurticle.2 What Peirkes does not mention is that Plato was also a profound influence on Moore's philosophy. One of die reasons Moore's influence on Bloomsbury was so strong is that he reinterpreted Plato for them. In her images and ideas Virginia Woolf was influenced direcdy dirough her reading of Plato etnd also indirectly through the work of Plotinus and Moore. These influences are not easily sepeurated, which is why studies of Platonic emd Neoplatonic influences in her work that ignore Moore's significance are so incomplete. 89 90Philosophy and Literature Peirkes claims mat die evidence of Moore's influence on Virginia Woolf is slight (p. 34), and then he concerns himself with the putative influences of German philosophers for whom mere is no evidence at all. In the fifteen years since I wrote my article, the biographical evidence for Moore's influence has continued to accumulate as Virginia Woolfs letters, memoirs, emd dieiries were published. From her first novel, in which Principia Etnica is quoted emd briefly discussed, down to die recently discovered revised version of her last memoir, in which she reaffirms her deep respect for Moore,3 the indications of Moore's significance for Virginia Woolf ought to convince any disinterested reader. It cannot be dismissed with a sneer about "the voguish fascination of the Bloomsbury Group..." (p. 34), especially from someone proposing to study yet again the depth psychology of her fiction via Nietzsche and Heidegger (P- 44). Nothing I say here, of course, will persuade Parkes of the value of philosophical realism for understanding To the Lighthouse because diat philosophy, as he conceives of it in his article, consists of straw. To tedce just one exeimple, Peirkes appeeurs to believe Moore's epistemology etrgues "diat things and persons are what they are independently of human consciousness" (p. 37). There is no space here to explain philosophical realism again to Parkes, odier than to note that it is not inconsistent with the veirious concerns (to use Peurkes's terminology) about "transpersonal imagination" or "participation in phenomena" that he finds so interesting in the novel. But what about die novel? For readers indifferent to whether Moore or Russell, Nietzsche or Heidegger are to be found in To the Lighthouse, the relevant question is what such philosophical interpretations medce of it. To them I ceui only say, reread the novel and then ask yourselves if an account of it diat says nothing about die value of art and almost nodiing about the value oflove bears much resemblance to your reading experience. Parkes thinks the portrait of Mr. Ramsay is unsympathetic because he is criticized emd mocked... (shrink)

The Asian American identity is intimately associated with upward class mobility as the model minority, yet women's earnings remain less than men's, and Asian American women are perceived to have strong family ties binding them to domestic responsibilities. As such, the exact class status of Asian American women is unclear. The immediate association of this ethnic identity with a specific class as demonstrated by the recently released Pew study that Asian Americans are “the highest-income, best-educated” ethnicity contrasts with another (...) study that finds Asian American women have the highest suicide rates in the United States. To understand these contrasting statistics, this article explores Asian American women's sense of authenticity. If the individual's sense of authenticity is intimately related with one's group identity, the association of the Asian American identity with a particular class ambivalently ensnares her as dichotomously inauthentic—as both the poor Asian American woman who fails to achieve economic upward mobility and the model minority Asian American woman who engages in assimilation practices. Feminist philosophers understand that identities change, but exactly how these transformations occur remains a mystery. The article ends with three speculations on the difficulties for practicing and recognizing individual acts that transform one's group identity. (shrink)

The tension between public duty and private conscience is a central theme of English history in the seventeenth century, when established authorities were questioned and violently disrupted. It has also been an important theme in the work of one of the foremost historians of the period, G.E. Aylmer. It makes, therefore, an especially appropriate subject for this volume. The contributors are leading historians, whose topics range from contemporary writings on conscience and duty to the particular problems faced by individuals and (...) groups, both Puritan and Royalist, at the center and in the localities. These scholarly and original studies throw new light on the innumberable dilemmas of conscience of seventeenth-century men and women, and together make a distinguished contribution to seventeenth-century history. (shrink)

How the brain constructs one's inner sense of gender iden-tity is poorly understood. On the other hand, the phenomenon of phantom sensations-- the feeling of still having a body-part after amputation--has been much studied. Around 60% of men experience a phantom penis post-penectomy. As transsexuals report a mismatch between their inner gender identity and that of their body, we won-dered what could be learnt from this regarding innate gender-specific body image. We surveyed male-to-female transsexuals regarding the incidence of phantoms post-gender (...) reassignment surgery. Addition-ally, we asked female-to-male transsexuals if they had ever had the sensation of having a penis when there was not one physically there. In post-operative male-to-female transsexuals the incidence of phan-tom penises was significantly reduced at 30%. Remarkably, over 60% of female-to-male transsexuals also reported phantom penises. We explain the absence/presence of phantoms here by postulating a mis-match between the brain's hardwired gender-specific body image and the external somatic gender. Further studies along these lines may provide penetrating insights into the question of how nature and nur-ture interact to produce our brain-based body image. (shrink)

Maistre’s Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato’s Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato’s legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism from materialist interpretations of natural science even as Plato defended it from ancient materialism.

The aim of this study was to obtain in-depth knowledge about caring confirmation of patients with cancer, from the patients’ point of view. The research topic was: what is the significance for patients of their being confirmed by nursing personnel? Fifteen men and women between 43 and 80 years of age participated in this study. The method of data collection used was qualitative research interviewing. A hermeneutic approach was used to interpret the data, in which Kvale’s self-perception, the ‘common sense’ (...) level, and theoretical levels were applied. The results are summarized in three areas: an outer confirmation, an inner confirmation, and a lack of the latter. Outer confirmation meant being understood and taken seriously; the maintenance of human dignity and worth indicated inner confirmation. A lack of inner confirmation is primarily manifest in terms of patients’ mental, spiritual and existential concerns. In relation to the theory of Eriksson, these patients were confirmed at the level of having and being, but seldom at the level of becoming. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in female expatriates, few empirical studies have focussed on corporate career development activities available to women. Given the faltering corporate support for female business expatriates in general, one may presume that such organizational activities are less available to women than to men. To test this proposition, a large number of Western female and male business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong responded to a mail survey. Controlling for differences between the two gender groups, three significant gender (...) differences were found, all indicating a lower availability of these corporate activities to women than to men, partially supporting expectations. These corporate career development activities were fast track programs, individual career counseling and career planning workshops. Implications of these findings for globalizing firms as well as for their female employees are discussed in detail. (shrink)

Background: Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home. Depression affects an estimated one in 15 adults (6.7%) in any given (...) year. And one in six people (16.6%) will experience depression at some time in their life. Depression can strike at any time, but on average, first appears during the late teens to mid-20s. Women are more likely than men to experience depression. Some studies show that one-third of women will experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment and give the appropriate method of treatment through several tips that concern the disease and how to treat it and we will see it through the application on the expert system. Methods: in this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Psychologist in diagnosing depression disease through its symptoms such as: a loss of energy, a change in appetite, sleeping more or less, anxiety, reduced concentration, indecisiveness, restlessness, feelings of worthlessness, guilt or hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. The proposed expert system presents an overview about depression disease is given, the cause of diseases is outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. SL5 Object Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed depression disease diagnosis expert system was evaluated by psychologist students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for psychologist, patients with depression and newly graduated psychologist. (shrink)

These essays apply influential, pathbreaking psychological studies about women's lives to literature. In their analyses of fictional portraits, contributors both challenge and confirm psychological theories about female identity, about 'connection/separation' as developmental catalysts, and about the impact of gender on 'voice,' moral decision-making, and epistemology in relation to classical and contemporary literary texts, written by both women and men.

Two themes, both from Husserl's later work, criss-cross in this Cologne dissertation: the move from objective science to the life-world, and the problem of the history of philosophy as a subject in Husserl's thought. The two themes are related, since the modern phenomenon of science, as that which has lost its roots in ordinary experience, is a phenomenon peculiar to the present historical condition of men and not a permanent human problem. According to Janssen, Husserl claims that philosophy has never (...) understood its own sense, and that the history of philosophy has always been an "empty intending" of what it is supposed to achieve; in phenomenology the intention is fulfilled, and its history comes to an end. Now a new sort of development, the clarification of what is already achieved, can be started. This understanding of history is neither deterministic nor random, Janssen says, but it is teleological; it allows science to be accepted as a meaningful achievement of man, and yet prevents science from suffocating freedom and discovery, as an outright idealist reading of history might force it to do. This understanding even demands--and makes possible--a special kind of critical responsibility in the scientist. Underlying this appreciation of history is Husserl's conviction that life is essentially a desire for truth. Philosophy reaches its definitive state by recovering the whole of human experience, especially by overcoming the abstract conception of experience which the objective sciences, and modern philosophy, have taken for the whole; it does this by recognizing and studying the Lebenswelt. Janssen develops these ideas clearly and persuasively.--R. S. (shrink)

There is increasing research on the inclusion and exclusion of people with disabilities in African spaces, which are perpetuated by religious and cultural fear. Decision to shun or embrace people is defined by the politics of the body and influenced by the religion and culture of fear. In politics of the body, women are discriminated against because their bodies are often controlled and put under surveillance. Women with disabilities experience this discrimination more than their able-bodied counterparts and men with disabilities. (...) Written from the perspective of the ethic of ubuntu, this article examines the fear of disability among the Ndebele of Matetsi in Zimbabwe, as well as how the politics of the body are used by women with disabilities to denounce this fear. These women described how they used and and still use their bodies to call for inclusion in their communities. The article employs findings from the politics of the body emerging from the narratives of women with disabilities to propose an African women’s theology of disability.Contribution: The article problematises fear of disability as a cause of discrimination and exclusion of differently abled people particularly women with. It therefore proposes an African women’s theology of disability that is informed by the interdisciplinary approach of Ubuntu promoting the inclusion of all people including women with disabilities into the web of life. (shrink)

Schleiermacher's Copernican revolution in theology is effected through his presentation of the Christian mythos in terms of a phenomenological anthropology of self-consciousness. Moreover, as Niebuhr shows in this apt study of some features of Schleiermacher's theological thinking, the principles which determine the shape of that revolution can be deduced neither from a biblical dogmatics allegedly purified of philosophical presuppositions nor from a philosophy uninformed by theological experience. In the first part of the book, Niebuhr discusses Schleiermacher's little-known work The Christmas (...) Eve: A Dialogue, affording us a picture of the author's starting-point in the experience of a salvation or potentiated self-consciousness which is historically and socially mediated. The subsequent analysis of the lectures on hermeneutics and ethics discloses the object of Schleiermacher's inquiry to be not the supernatural being that posits the cosmos, but the creative Logos indwelling the individual and all men by means of the common, organic media of human existence in which the self both comes to be and comes to create history and culture. Finally, The Christian Faith is reviewed by Niebuhr in terms of the expression it gives to the mature Schleiermacher's theology and christology. The primordial consciousness of being-in-relation reveals the historical, societal, worldly context of the self and the various polarities of the self's existence such that religion emerges as a phenomenon coterminous with man's affective response to the relationships in which the whole of human nature is bound, and theology, the "daughter of religion," becomes the methodology by which the articulation of an affective determination of self-consciousness is achieved. The rigorously pursued explicitation [[sic]] of the forms and determinations of self-consciousness is interpreted by Niebuhr with a penetration and a sympathy at once acute and comprehensive. By giving us a series of insights into Schleiermacher's "thinking in motion," Niebuhr has contributed a cogent testimony to the nineteenth-century theologian's central importance in the fields of hermeneutical theory, philosophical ethics, philosophy of religion and culture, and theology. One would have welcomed a more critical appraisal of Schleiermacher's view of the formal and material compatibility of philosophy and theology, understanding and feeling, inasmuch as the scope of theological inquiry appears to be limited by the boundaries of reason set forth in the ethics, and philosophical anthropology is apparently reduced to a rather sophisticated phenomenology of religious experience. In any case, Niebuhr's scholarly treatment of the material should lead the reader to an informed examination of Schleiermacher's text.--J. M. S. (shrink)

A careful, wide-ranging but basically unilluminating study of the medical, philosophical, and psychological literature on the concept of identity, beginning with Descartes and dwelling on Erik Erickson, who has pursued William James' approach to the problem. Erickson has investigated group identity in two Indian cultures, its connection with the ideals of the individual, and the development of this connection in the child. The middle of the book is an intermezzo which discusses Ovid's Metamorphoses and W. F. Hermans' The Dark Room (...) of Damocles as anthologies of human conflicts, and of identity problems of members of the resistance movements during the Second World War. In the last third of the book, De Levita attempts to clarify the mass of material he has presented. He makes a suggestive distinction between "identity" and "individuality," "identity" being the unique combination of roles which I call mine, and "individuality" being the manner in which I enact my roles. He comments that men too often stress which roles they play rather than how they are played. The book is best approached as a review of literature on the subject rather than as an attempt to directly confront the problem.--S. A. S. (shrink)

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane was a giant among men. He made major contributions to genetics, population biology, and evolutionary theory. He was at once comfortable in mathematics, chemistry, microbiology and animal physiology. But it was his belief in education that led to his preparing his popular essays for publication. In his own words: "Many scientific workers believe that they should confine their publications to learned journals. I think that the public has a right to know what is going on inside (...) the laboratories, for some of which it pays." So begins Haldane's collection of essays, perhaps the most public intellectual communicating science before the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. The first part of the volume emphasizes the important developments in biology and natural science in the first quarter of the century. As such, it provides a benchmark for studies of the next three quarters of the century. In an unusual introduction, Price takes the readers through their paces, discussing the situation then and now in vitamins, oxygen want, disease controls, and the rewards of science as such. This is followed by Haldane's views on society, art, religion and economy as seen through the eyes of a politically alert major scientist. The editor provides readers unfamiliar with Haldane with a carefully rendered chronology of a life that began in 1892 and that spanned much of the present century. Despite ideas on race, class and politics that have seen better times, Haldane was truly exceptional in translating the science of his time into ideas that "everyman" could readily grasp. His predictions on what science would achieve were on target far more often than not. But even his failed predictions are perhaps the most interesting of all. They throw into sharp relief the truly novel and revolutionary developments in science over the past 75 years. J.B.S. Haldane held many positions and received many honors during his lifetime. But for most of the period covered in this volume, he was the William Dunn Reader in Biochemistry at Cambridge University. He simultaneously served as Fellow of New College, in Oxford University's Horticultural Institute. Carl A. Price served until 1999 as professor IIof plant molecular biology in the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He also served as the editor of Plant Molecular Biology Reporter from 1983 until 1997. This is the first volume in a new series on the history and theory of science. (shrink)

A decade ago, the “new sociology of masculinity” emerged as an exciting new paradigm for understanding gender, emphasizing the study of “hegemonic power relations” among men and women. However, subsequent research has not fully redeemed the promise of the NSM, failing to seriously engage the theoretical implications of studying hegemony. This article addresses the lacunae by presenting a theoretically informed analysis of life history interviews with Chinese American men. Its chief empirical question is how Chinese American men “achieve” masculinity in (...) the face of negative stereotypes. This is accomplished, it is found, through four possible gender strategies: compensation, deflection, denial, or repudiation. The author then fashions a theoretical account of these strategies to show how they can reproduce the social order by striking a hegemonic bargain, which occurs when a Chinese American man's gender strategy involves consciously trading on—or unconsciously taking advantage of—the “privileges” of his race, gender, class, generation, and/or sexuality for the purposes of elevating his masculinity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste SystemChristopher S. QueenDr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System. By Christophe Jaffrelot. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. xiii + 205 pp.Outside of India, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar remains virtually unknown. Everyone knows that Mahatma Gandhi led the fight for Indian independence and that his nonviolent marches inspired Dr. King and the American civil rights movement. Most educated men (...) and women have heard of Nehru and some of the political and literary figures that India has produced in modern times. But few know of the first Untouchable to attend college, who went on to earn advanced degrees in the social sciences and law at Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and Grays Inn, who returned to India in the 1920s to launch a civil rights movement for Untouchables, [End Page 168] who drafted the constitution for the Republic of India as its first law minister, and who led a mass conversion to Buddhism weeks before this death.Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) is venerated by millions of Buddhist and low-caste followers in India today, and at the same time feared by politicians determined to preserve the Hindu caste system he vowed to destroy. Admirers call him Babasaheb Ambedkar or simply Baba, using a traditional term of respect for a guiding elder, and many use the greeting Jai Bhim (“Victory to Bhimrao”) within the Untouchable communities. Ambedkar is portrayed on ubiquitous wall calendars, public statues, and home altars alongside that of the Buddha, wearing a Western suit and tie, with the horn-rimmed glasses and pocket pens of a scholar and diplomat. Although widely regarded as a bodhisattva or Buddhist saint, he is never pictured in the robes of a holy man or entreated in prayer by his devotees. And while most of his campaigns for Untouchable human rights were driven back by the Hindu nationalists, many of the provisions of his path-breaking legislation were eventually adopted after his death. In the intervening decades, amid deepening polarization over his legacy, the state government of Maharashtra has published eighteen volumes of Ambedkar’s collected works and the government of India has bestowed on him its highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna.Given the dearth of Western scholarship on Ambedkar’s place in the history of modern India and the emergence of socially engaged Buddhism, I welcome Chris-tophe Jaffrelot’s Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System. As a social scientist and director of the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internatio-nales (CERI) who has published more than a dozen books on South Asian politics, Jaffrelot is well qualified to assess Ambedkar’s life and thought. Drawing on a wide range of materials on the social reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Ambedkar’s contributions to sociology and politics, the author aims to redress Ambedkar’s neglect by Indian scholars before the 1990s, when the low-caste movement began finally to gain traction. However, he does not address the anomaly of Ambedkar’s neglect by all but a small circle of Western authors.1The strength of Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability is its concise analysis of the geographical, political, and social context of Ambedkar’s career. Jaffrelot shows how British recruitment of the Mahars, members of Ambedkar’s lowly but numerous caste, for service in the colonial army resulted in disproportionate levels of literacy. Ambedkar was the fourteenth child in such a military family, whose father held the rank of major and served as a school master for the barracks. Both parents and all of Bhimrao’s uncles could read and write, compared to less than one percent of Mahars in village life. Moreover, in spite of his brilliance and determination, Ambedkar could not have continued his education without the financial support of Maratha maharajahs who opposed the Brahmins’ monopoly in education. “Ambedkar was the heir to a regional tradition; his struggle harked back to the anti-Brahmin movements which emerged in western Maharashtra from the mid-nineteenth century onward, a precocity that only the Dravidian South—the other key area of anti-Brahmin mobilization—could match.”Jaffrelot presents... (shrink)