The essays which follow, as theological reflections of a Christian the ontological reality of philosopher, are essays of inquiry concerning and underlying truths revealed by God. Divine revelation of course cannot be encompassed within a few dogmatic formulae in any ade quate manner; it is the mysterious plenitude of the historical human encounter with the self-revealing God Who has revealed His salvific designs for men. This revelation can be approached from many view points of scientific study, such as those of (...) religious psychology, histori cal theology, Scriptural study, the history of dogmas, but also that of the philosophical thinker seeking to understand what he has already believed - so far as this be possible in regard to the mysteries of God's inner life and of the new creation that He works in us by His grace. In our rather non-metaphysical age such an inquiry into the underlying ontological reality opened to us by the revelation of God is somewhat unfashionable; but the issues remain, and in fact one can only choose between a rather unconsciously and uncritically accepted attitude about the ontological significance of such dogmatic truths as the existence of the Trinity and the hypostatic union and created grace, and a consciously and critically developed analysis in the light of, and with the help of such understanding of being as the philosophers can offer. Metaphysical theology of this kind is here to stay, regardless of some "prophets" who would cut away the ground on which they stand. (shrink)

As scholars envision a new regulatory or statutory neurorights schema it is important to imagine unintended consequences if reforms are implemented before their implications are fully understood. This paper critically evaluates provisions proposed for a new Chilean Constitution and evaluates this movement against efforts to improve the diagnosis of, and treatment for, individuals with disorders of consciousness within the broader context of disability law, international human rights, and a capabilities approach to health justice as advanced by Amartya Sen and Martha (...) Nussbaum. Framed in this way, any neurorights regime would need to satisfy several criteria. First it would be obliged to balance both positive and negative rights in the furtherance of human capabilities. Second, it would need to be future oriented and informed about the science it sought to regulate and not fall prey to science fiction fantasies that remain ungrounded in reality. Third, it would need to be specific and avoid generalizations that would lead to conceptual confusion and litigation that could delay scientific progress. Finally, it would need to harmonize novel neurorights with long-established norms in international disability and human rights law. A failure to meet these criteria will destine any novel neurorights regime to the periphery. At this juncture Chile’s nascent constitutional venture into neurorights fails to satisfy these criteria. While there yet may be a role for a more capacious and bivalent articulation of neurorights that account for capabilities and precedent, the current Chilean neurorights reforms are vague and premature. As such they should undergo additional scholarly scrutiny and should not be adopted by other jurisdictions. (shrink)

Emotion regulation is one of the major foci of study in the fields of emotion and emotional development. This article proposes that to properly study emotion regulation, one must consider not only an intrapersonal view of emotion, but a relational one as well. Defining properties of intrapersonal and relational approaches are spelled out, and implications drawn for how emotion regulation is conceptualized, how studies are designed, how findings are interpreted, and how generalizations are drawn. Most research to date has been (...) conducted from an intrapersonal perspective, and the shortcomings of this approach for understanding emotion regulation are highlighted. The article emphasizes major conceptual and methodological steps required for a fuller description of the process of emotion regulation. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl EDMUND GUSTAVE ALBRECHT HUSSERL was born in Prossnitz, Moravia, on April 8, 1859. After receiving his secondary education in Vienna, ...

In Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, Joseph J. Kockelmans provides the reader with a biographical sketch and an overview of the salient features of Husserl's thought. Kockelmans focuses on the essay for the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1928, Husserl's most Important effort to articulate the aims of phenomenology for a more general audience. Included are Husserl's text -- in the original German and in English translation on facing pages -- a synopsis, and an extensive commentary that relates Husserl's work as a whole (...) to the essay for the Encyclopedia. (shrink)

Language, meaning, and ek-sistence, by J. J. Kockelmans.--Heidegger's conception of language in Being and time, by J. Aler.--Poetry and language in Heidegger, by W. Biemel.--Heidegger's topology of being, by O. Pöggeler.--Thinking and poetizing in Heidegger, by H. Birault.--Hermeneutic and personal structure of language, by H. Ott.--Ontological difference, hermeneutics, and language, by J. J. Kockelmans.--The world in another beginning: poetic dwelling and the role of the poet, by W. Marx.--Panel discussion.--Heidegger's language: metalogical forms of thought and grammatical specialties, by E. Schöfer.--M. (...) Heidegger's "ontological difference" and language, by J. Lohmann.--Bibliography (p. 365-368). (shrink)

Although clinical ethics consultation is a high-stakes endeavor with an increasing prominence in health care systems, progress in developing standards for quality is challenging. In this article, we describe the results of a pilot project utilizing portfolios as an evaluation tool. We found that this approach is feasible and resulted in a reasonably wide distribution of scores among the 23 submitted portfolios that we evaluated. We discuss limitations and implications of these results, and suggest that this is a significant step (...) on the pathway to an eventual certification process for clinical ethics consultants. (shrink)

Husserl's Original View on Phenomenological Psychology* JOSEPH J.KOCKELMANS Some forty years ago Edmund Husserl spoke publicly for the first time of a ...

Joseph J. Kockelmans provides a clear and systematic treatment of the central themes and topics of Heidegger's later writings, focusing on the all-important question of the relationship of truth and Being. If we are to understand Heidegger's thought, Kockelmans explains, we must conceive it as a path or way, rather than as a finished system. Adopting this approach himself, Kockelmans leads us with scholarly care through the wide range of issues that Heidegger wrote about between roughly 1935 and 1965. (...) After a discussion of Heidegger's own effort to learn to think, subsequent chapters present Heidegger's views on such matters as the meaning of Being; the ontological difference; heaven and earth; gods and mortals; and language, art, science, technology, ethics, and politics. In conclusion, Kockelmans reflects on the task of thinking in an age when classical philosophy has reached its logical end. (shrink)

Building upon an earlier critique of the Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) granting of a humanitarian device exemption for deep brain stimulation in treatment-resistant obsessive compulsive disorder, this article considers how we regulate and finance DBS. It suggests that these devices are mosaic in nature: both potentially therapeutic and probative and that their dual roles need to be appreciated to maximize their therapeutic and investigational potential.

On January 5, 2019, the Associated Press reported that a woman thought to have been in the vegetative state for over a decade gave birth at a Hacienda HealthCare facility. Until she delivered, the staff at the Phoenix center had not noticed that their patient was pregnant. The patient was also misdiagnosed.Misdiagnosis of patients with disorders of consciousness in institutional settings is more the norm than the exception. Misdiagnosis is also connected to a broad and extremely significant change in the (...) understanding of the vegetative state—a change that the field of bioethics has not yet fully taken into account. In September 2018, the American Academy of Neurology, the American College of Rehabilitation Medicine, and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research issued a comprehensive evidence‐based review on disorders of consciousness and an associated practice guideline on the care of these patients. These landmark publications update the 1994 Multi‐Society Task Force Report on the Vegetative State, which subcategorized the persistent vegetative state as either persistent (once the vegetative state lasted one month) or permanent (once the vegetative state lasted three months after anoxic injury or twelve months after traumatic injury). Noting that 20 percent of patients thought to be permanently unconscious might regain some level of consciousness, the new guideline has eliminated the permanent vegetative state as a diagnostic category, replacing it with the chronic vegetative state. (shrink)

"This fine work's ample documentation should gladden the scholarly reader while its accessible prose & well-organized presentation will make it useful for ...

As improvements in neuroscience have enabled a better understanding of disorders of consciousness as well as methods to treat them, a hurdle that has become all too prevalent is the denial of coverage for treatment and rehabilitation services. In 2011, a settlement emerged from a Vermont District Court case, Jimmo v. Sebelius, which was brought to stop the use of an “improvement standard” that required tangible progress over an identifiable period of time for Medicare coverage of services. While the use (...) of this standard can have deleterious effects on those with many chronic conditions, it is especially burdensome for those in the minimally conscious state, where improvements are unpredictable and often not manifested through repeatable overt behaviors. Though the focus of this paper is on the challenges of brain injury and the minimally conscious state, which an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 individuals suffer from in the United States, the post-Jimmo arguments presented can and should have a broad impact as envisioned by the plaintiffs who brought the case on behalf of multiple advocacy groups representing patients with a range of chronic care conditions. (shrink)

: This paper presents a method of moral problem solving in clinical practice that is inspired by the philosophy of John Dewey. This method, called "clinical pragmatism," integrates clinical and ethical decision making. Clinical pragmatism focuses on the interpersonal processes of assessment and consensus formation as well as the ethical analysis of relevant moral considerations. The steps in this method are delineated and then illustrated through a detailed case study. The implications of clinical pragmatism for the use of principles in (...) moral problem solving are discussed. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein on Meaning, Colin McGinn argues that the skeptical argument that Kripke distills from Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations generates at most what might be called meaning skepticism (the non-factuality view of meaning), and not concept skepticism (the non-factuality view of concepts). If correct, this would mean the skeptical reasoning is far less significant than Kripke thinks. Others have seemed to agree with McGinn. I argue that McGinn is wrong here--that, in fact, Kripke's skeptical reasoning has a straightforward extension to concepts. (...) Whether the reasoning succeeds, however, is another matter, which I do not address here. (shrink)

Jacques Rancière: An Introduction offers the first comprehensive introduction to the thought of one of today's most important and influential theorists. Joseph Tanke situates Rancière's distinctive approach against the backdrop of Continental philosophy and extends his insights into current discussions of art and politics. Tanke explains how Rancière's ideas allow us to understand art as having a deeper social role than is customarily assigned to it, as well as how political opposition can be revitalized. The book presents Rancière's body (...) of work as a coherent whole, tracing key notions such as the distribution of the sensible, the aesthetics of politics, and the supposition of equality from his earliest writings through to his most recent interventions. Tanke concludes with a series of critical questions for Rancière's work, indicating how contemporary thought might proceed after its encounter with him. The book provides readers new to Rancière with a clear overview of his enormous intellectual output. Engaging with many un-translated and unpublished sources, the book will also be of interest to Rancière's long-time readers. (shrink)

This anthology of selections from the works of noted philosophers affords the student an immediate contact with the unique historical background of the philosophy of science. The selections, many of which have not been readily accessible, follow the development of the philosophy of science from 1786 to 1927. Each selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the editor designed to familiarize the reader with a particular philosopher and provide insights into his work. Joseph J. Kockelmans divides the selections (...) into several sections. Part 1, from 17861850, includes chapters by Immanuel Kant, on the metaphysical foundations of natural science, John Frederick William Herschel, on experience and the analysis of phenomena, William Whewell, on the nature and conditions of inductive science, and John Stuart Mill, on induction and the law of universal causation; part 2, from 18701899, includes chapters by Hermann Von Helmholtz, on the origin and significance of geometrical axioms, William Stanley Jevons, on the philosophy of inductive inference, John Bernard Stallo, on the kinetic theory of gasses and the conditions of the validity of scientific hypotheses, Ernst Mach, on the economical nature of physical inquiry, Karl Pearson, on perceptual and conceptual space, Emile Boutroux, on mechanical laws, Heinrich Hertz, on the appropriateness, correctness, and permissibility of scientific theories, and Ludwig Boltzmann, on the fundamental principles and basic equations of mechanics. The third part, covering the first decade of the twentieth century, includes chapters by Henri Jules Poincare, on science and reality, Charles Peirce, on Induction, Pierre Marie Duhem, on the laws of physics, William Ostwald, on energetism and mechanics, Emile Meyerson, on identity of thought and nature as the final goal of science, Ernst Cassirer, on functional concepts of natural science; part 4, from 19101927, includes chapters by Charles Dunbar Broad, on phenomenalism, Alfred North Whitehead, on time, space, and material, Bertrand Russell, on the world of physics and the world of sense, Norman Robert Cambbell, on the meaning of science, Moritz Schlick, on basic issues of the philosophy of natural science, and Percy Williams Bridgman, on the concepts of space, time, and causality. Philosophy of Science provides a concise single volume text to the discipline and enables students to understand and evaluate the various trends in our contemporary philosophy of science. Joseph J. Kockelmans is professor emeritus of philosophy at the Pennsylvania State Univers. (shrink)

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame to move (...) these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

Research in education and cognitive development suggests that explaining plays a key role in learning and generalization: When learners provide explanations—even to themselves—they learn more effectively and generalize more readily to novel situations. This paper proposes and tests a subsumptive constraints account of this effect. Motivated by philosophical theories of explanation, this account predicts that explaining guides learners to interpret what they are learning in terms of unifying patterns or regularities, which promotes the discovery of broad generalizations. Three experiments provide (...) evidence for the subsumptive constraints account: prompting participants to explain while learning artificial categories promotes the induction of a broad generalization underlying category membership, relative to describing items (Exp. 1), thinking aloud (Exp. 2), or free study (Exp. 3). Although explaining facilitates discovery, Experiment 1 finds that description is more beneficial for learning item details. Experiment 2 additionally suggests that explaining anomalous observations may play a special role in belief revision. The findings provide insight into explanation’s role in discovery and generalization. (shrink)

The notion of hospital chaplaincy raises significant concerns, because it provides for the possibility that the chaplain becomes a generic chaplain rather than a member of a particular faith. Despite these reservations, however, I think that Mennonites should serve as hospital chaplains. Instead of seeing themselves as chaplains to all, though, Mennonites ought to see the service they provide as analogous to relief and development work. This would make Mennonite chaplaincy a form of what Mennonite scholar C. Norman Krause calls (...) “agapeic intervention,” which would allow for the ministry to the sick without requiring genericism. (shrink)