The notion of evil spirits influencing human behavior or mental processes is used in many cultures to justify various symptoms or experiences. It is also expressed in psychotic delusions of possession, but there is limited research in this area. This study explores how patients with schizophrenia came to the conclusion that they were possessed, and how this affected help-seeking. Interviews with two men and two women about their experiences and meaning-making were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three main themes were (...) identified: Links between traumatic experiences and psychotic symptoms, The emergence of religious themes in delusional contents, and Reluctance to use medical treatment and instead to seek exorcism. In each case, attributing problems to possession was supported by the local environment and media, led to seeking spiritual help, and delayed diagnostic assessment and treatment. However, using religious coping contributed to the sense of predictability and social support. Clinicians are encouraged to explore the experiences and conflicts expressed by the symptoms which people ascribe to possession and to negotiate alternative explanatory models with their patients. (shrink)

ICD-10 and DSM-5 do not provide clear diagnosing guidelines for DID, making it difficult to distinguish ‘genuine’ DID from imitated or false-positive cases. This study explores meaning which patients with false-positive or imitated DID attributed to their diagnosis. 85 people who reported elevated levels of dissociative symptoms in SDQ-20 participated in clinical assessment using the Trauma and Dissociation Symptoms Interview, followed by a psychiatric interview. The recordings of six women, whose earlier DID diagnosis was disconfirmed, were transcribed and subjected to (...) interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five main themes were identified: endorsement and identification with the diagnosis. The notion of dissociative parts justifies identity confusion and conflicting ego-states. Gaining knowledge about DID affects the clinical presentation. Fragmented personality becomes an important discussion topic with others. Ruling out DID leads to disappointment or anger. To avoid misdiagnoses, clinicians should receive more systematic training in the assessment of dissociative disorders, enabling them to better understand subtle differences in the quality of symptoms and how dissociative and non-dissociative patients report them. This would lead to a better understanding of how patients with and without a dissociative disorder report core dissociative symptoms. Some guidelines for a differential diagnosis are provided. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore cultural factors affecting burial rituals in Poland. Thirty-four university students collected data from their relatives and created written narratives about deaths in their families or community. Ten additional interviews were conducted with community members, a priest, and medical personnel as part of theoretical sampling and verification of emerging theories. The qualitative material was administered with NVivo and analysed using the Grounded Theory techniques to produce a complex description of folk beliefs, superstitions, as (...) well as symbolic and psychological meaning ascribed to traditional customs. Some of the practices were found susceptible to extinction due to industrialisation, globalisation, and cultural development. (shrink)

There is no empirical research exploring how substance abuse therapists perceive and manage their professional role or privacy boundaries. This study explores their attitudes associated with self-disclosure and dual relationships. Ten therapists, five who had recovered and five who had never been substance dependent, shared their work experiences during semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which have been subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. While nonneophytes were generally reluctant to share personal information or establish alternative forms of relationship with current or former clients, neophytes (...) were more open to using self-disclosure and admitted changing professional relationships into friendships. These findings are discussed in relation to ethical codes, training and supervision in substance abuse treatment. (shrink)

Studies show that involuntary displacement often creates various threats for the community and individuals. To reduce these risks, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, Health Impact Assessment, and Social Assessment are recommended. Whereas assessments focus mostly on the community level and studies describe cases of large population displacements, there is a lack of empirical evidence about how individuals cope with involuntary displacement and what factors contribute or hinder their successful adaptation in the target location. This study uses semi-structured interviews with 21 (...) people about their experience of resettlement due to a mine collapse in Bytom, Poland, that led to involuntary displacement of 560 people. Data was analyzed according to the constructivist grounded theory principles. Results show that this case illustrates a mixture of post-disaster and development-induced displacement. Various factors and resources that affected coping strategies were analyzed, including: material and legal status, health and age, communication skills, and relocation experience. Our findings suggest that, when circumstances allow, an individual resources assessment should also be conducted to counteract impoverishment and further marginalization of the disprivileged and vulnerable individuals. (shrink)

A paper on how to adapt your probabilisitc beliefs when learning a conditional.

Jürgen Habermas’s recent engagement with Marx in Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie has mostly gone unnoticed by commentators. Habermas is among the few representatives of the Frankfurt School who has consistently stressed the importance of the “Marxian heritage” for a rigorous understanding of critical theory. In this essay, I critically examine two guiding threads in Habermas’s ongoing reconstruction of historical materialism: the relationship between labor and interaction, as well as the emancipatory potential unleashed by the democratic constitutional state. I argue (...) that Habermas’s reconstruction of historical materialism points to several lacunae in Marx’s work, but that it also reveals valuable insights into the latter’s oeuvre that have yet to be adequately addressed by Habermas. I conclude that it is time for Habermas to consciously reclaim the “Marxian heritage.”. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...

As cognitive enhancement research advances, important ethical questions regarding individual autonomy and freedom are raised. Advocates of cognitive enhancement frequently adopt a procedural approach to autonomy, arguing that enhancers improve an individual’s reasoning capabilities, which are quintessential to being an autonomous agent. On the other hand, critics adopt a more nuanced approach by considering matters of authenticity and self-identity, which go beyond the mere assessment of one’s reasoning capacities. Both positions, nevertheless, require further philosophical scrutiny. In this paper, we investigate (...) the ethics of cognitive enhancement through the lenses of political and philosophical arguments about autonomy and freedom. In so doing, we contend that a substantive, relational account of individual autonomy offers a more holistic understanding of the ethical concerns of cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

This paper relates to a formal statement of the mechanisms that are thought minimally necessary to underpin consciousness. This is expressed in the form of axioms. We deem this to be useful if there is ever to be clarity in answering questions about whether this or the other organism is or is not conscious. As usual, axioms are ways of making formal statements of intuitive beliefs and looking, again formally, at the consequences of such beliefs. The use of this style (...) of exposition does not entail a claim to provide a mathematically rigorous formal deductive system. Conventional mathematical notation is used to achieve clarity, although this is elaborated with natural language in an attempt to reduce terseness. In our view, making the approach axiomatic is synonymous with building clear usable tests for consciousness and is therefore a central feature of the paper. The extended scope of this approach is to lay down some essential properties that should be considered when designing machines that could be said to be conscious. In the broader discussion about the nature of consciousness and its neurological mechanisms, it may seem to some that axiomatisation is premature and continues to beg many questions. However, the approach is meant to be open- ended so that others can build further axiomatic clarifications that address the very large number of questions which, in the search for a formal basis for consciousness, still remain to be answered. Of course, in discussions about consciousness many will also argue that the subject is not one that may ever be formally addressed by means of axioms. The view taken in this paper is 'let's try to do it and see how far it gets'. (shrink)

This article intends to analyze the performance and the efficiency of companies and to identify the key factors that may explain it. It was selected a sample with 15 enterprises: 7 Portuguese and 8 Ukrainian ones, belonging to several industries. Financial and non-financial data was collected for 6 years, during the period of 2009 to 2014. Research questions that guided this work were: Are the enterprises efficient/profitable? What factors influence enterprises’ efficiency/performance? Is there any difference between Ukrainian and Portuguese enterprises’ (...) efficiency/performance, which factors have more influence? Which industrial sector is represented by more efficient/profitable enterprises? The main results showed that in average enterprises were efficient with low level of profitability. According to gained results several indicators were highlighted so that companies would pay more attention to them. (shrink)

There has been a growing debate about the ethics of management buy-outs (MBOs). One possible criticism of the MBO is that it serves the interests of incumbent management at the expense of shareholders. In this paper we develop the general arguments concerning the ethical aspects of the MBO to include other forms of buy-out beyond going privates and apply the analysis to MBOs as a mode of privatisation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). MBOs are justified in this context postperestroika (...) as a means of incentivising economic activity by giving managers an ownership stake in former state enterprises. The actual mode of privatisation, though, raises issues of social justice and the criticism that MBOs are at the expense of the broader social good. The ethical problem for the CEE is to balance the economic gains of a move to markets with the ethical risks to the agents of these markets. (shrink)

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy. It then moves from a general background of infinity up through Kant. Readers will learn (...) about the place of infinity in the writings of key early modern thinkers. The contributors profile the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Debates over infinity significantly influenced philosophical discussion regarding the human condition and the extent and limits of human knowledge. Questions about the infinity of space, for instance, helped lead to the introduction of a heliocentric solar system as well as the discovery of calculus. This volume offers readers an insightful look into all this and more. It provides a broad perspective that will help advance the present state of knowledge on this important but often overlooked topic. (shrink)

The early modern and modern cultural world in the West would be unthinkable without Petrarch and Boccaccio. Despite this fact, there is still no scholarly contribution entirely devoted to analysing their intellectual revolution. Internationally renowned scholars are invited to discuss and rethink the historical, intellectual, and literary roles of Petrarch and Boccaccio between the great model of Dante’s encyclopedia and the ideas of a double or multifaceted culture in the era of Italian Renaissance Humanism. In his lyrical poems and Latin (...) treatises, Petrarch created a cultural pattern that was both Christian and Classical, exercising immense influence on the Western World in the centuries to come. Boccaccio translated this pattern into his own vernacular narratives and erudite works, ultimately claiming as his own achievement the reconstructed unity of the Ancient Greek and Latin world in his contemporary age. The volume reconsiders Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s heritages from different perspectives, and investigates how these heritages shaped the cultural transition between the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern era, as well as European identity. (shrink)

Encontramos linguagens e códigos de todos os tipos e em todas as esferas na natureza. No entanto, quando chegamos no homem vemos esses códigos aplicados não como algo mecânico, como é notado na natureza, mas como articulações para o social. A partir disso, é apresentado à psicanálise, que tem como sua coluna vertebral a escuta que é voltada para a natureza discursiva do homem. Iremos explorar neste artigo qual seria a escuta servida para o discurso na clínica, pois não é (...) colocado uma regra no discurso do analisando, este é livre para dizer o que quer dizer e como ele entender, sendo que tal liberdade é evitada nas relações sociais, pois ele (o analisando) não a exerce por ter consciência das leis sociais que são, desde sua infância, aglutinadas a ele, as quais, seu cumprimento é cobrado.Para se ter esse ouvir a psicanálise trabalha para tornar os ouvidos do analista um órgão apropriadamente de escuta e compreensão, pois a fala do analista vem dessa escuta do discurso que não é seu durante aquele tempo, mas que vem a ser depois de completo para ser matéria de análise. (shrink)

Neste artigo procura-se responder ao desafio da leitura de Heidegger no que concerne à possibilidade de uma relação entre ontologia e ética.O autor investiga a possibilidade da colocação do problema de tal relação,privilegiando a noção heideggeriana de liberdade.

This article addresses the role of auditory-related verbs in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Pierre Schaeffer in order to shed light on a broader tendency in French thought. Through a comparative reading of the ways in which Nancy, in Listening, and Schaeffer, in Treatise on Musical Objects, mobilize verbs such as écouter and entendre, I connect the issue of language to debates about descriptive and prescriptive approaches towards listening. Drawing on the Dictionary of Untranslatables, I argue that Nancy's and (...) Schaeffer's engagements with listening can be mapped onto historical modes of framing politics and ethics, which are also characterized by descriptive and prescriptive approaches. By showing how theories of listening connect to political and ethical debates, this study discusses the ideological instrumentalization of listening as opposed to more descriptive and exploratory forms of engagement in the auditory and the faculty of the ear. (shrink)

Topoi in Critical Discourse Analysis Topos is one of the most widely-used concepts from classical argumentation theory. It found its way not only in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics; it found its way in everyday life and everyday conversation as well.In this article, I will examine the role that topoi play in Critical Discourse Analysis. Starting with definitions from Aristotle and Cicero, contrasting them with new conceptualisations by Perelman and Toulmin, and examining the superficial use of topoi in everyday conversation, (...) I will try to show that Critical Discourse Analysis relies mostly on simplified, unreflected use of topoi as found in everyday use, thus neglecting much more productive, theoretical elaborations of the concept. (shrink)

The article analyzes the effectiveness of quantum theories of mental experience in relation to two ontological problems - the problem of the existence of consciousness in the material world and the problem of the interaction of consciousness and body. A critical analysis of the quantum theories of consciousness by Penrose-Hameroff, M. Tegmark, G. Stapp, M. Fischer and M.B. Mensky shows that they fail to fully explain how complex physical systems generate mental experience without violating the principle of causal closure of (...) the physical world and the principle of epistemological completeness of physics. Quantum mechanics provides specific processes that are the physical basis of the psyche, but do not explain the phenomenal aspect of subjective reality. Nevertheless, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle gives an understanding of how the interaction of consciousness and body within the scientific picture of the world can be carried out without violating the law of energy conservation. It is shown that the quantum theories of consciousness currently being developed have a predominantly panprotopsychic character, which faces a problem due to the fact that the protomental property of physical systems must be expressed quantitatively and correspond to the value included in the physical equations. As a result, it is concluded that in order to develop quantum theories of consciousness more effectively, it is necessary to give an emergent character, not jumping from the quantum level to the psychic, but explaining the mechanism of the emergence of systemic properties during the sequential transition between different ontological regions of existence, including physical, chemical, biological, neurophysiological and psychic. (shrink)

I reconstruct Aristotle’s analytical procedure in Prior Analytics I.45 and its metalogical implications. Aristotle’s analysis unfolds three groups of syllogisms: symmetrically analysable, asymmetrically analysable, and non-analysable syllogisms. From the first and the third group could be extracted 27 combinations of the two mutually non-derivable deductive rules. Aristotle’s reduced deductive system in APr. I.7 with the two moods in the first figure (traditionally called Barbara and Celarent) follows this pattern. I demonstrate that the deductive system with Barbara and Celarent is just (...) one of 27 possible complete deductive systems with the two mutually non-derivable syllogistic rules. On top of that, given the fact that there are two combinations of mutually non-derivable conversion rules, I conclude that Prior Analytics hides in itself 54 complete deductive systems with a minimal number of mutually non-derivable rules. Finally, it is commented what might be the role of analysis; to what extent Aristotle could be aware of possibilities presented here; why he still prefers only one deductive system to many others with the same deductive power. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 2 Seiten: 115-127.

The author compares the outlook of the early twentieth-century Russian literary and artistic avant-garde with the anticapitalist critique of the early Marx, with special reference to the concepts of defamiliarization and alienation.

We introduce a general representation of unary hyperintensional modalities and study various hyperintensional modal logics based on the representation. It is shown that the major approaches to hyperintensionality known from the literature, that is state-based, syntactic and structuralist approaches, all correspond to special cases of the general framework. Completeness results pertaining to our hyperintensional modal logics are established.

Natural language provides motivation for studying modal backwards-looking operators such as “now”, “then” and “actually” that evaluate their argument formula at some previously considered point instead of the current one. This paper investigates the expressive power over models of both propositional and first-order basic modal language enriched with such operators. Having defined an appropriate notion of bisimulation for first-order modal logic, I show that backwards-looking operators increase its expressive power quite mildly, contrary to beliefs widespread among philosophers of language and (...) formal semanticists. That in turn presents a strong argument for the use of operator-based systems in the semantics of natural language, instead of systems with explicit quantification over worlds and times that have become a de-facto standard for such applications. The popularity of such explicit-quantification systems is shown to be based on the misinterpretation of a claim by Cresswell, which led many philosophers and linguists to assume that introducing “now” and “then” is expressively equivalent to explicitly quantifying over worlds and times. (shrink)

The business case for Corporate Social Responsibility is a powerful driver for mainstreaming socially responsible behavior in corporate practice. This is because managers’ proclivity to assume responsibility is positively correlated with their expectations that CSR pays off. However, there is the danger that managers might be tempted to focus primarily on those CSR activities that allow to link the associated costs and benefits ex ante reliably which, in turn, is a precondition for a perceived business case. Unfortunately, the perceived business (...) case for CSR activities that prevent irresponsible behavior is rather weak. In contrast, CSR in terms of the voluntary engagement for society is quite promising for the perceived business case. In consequence, a business case–driven approach to CSR might foster “cherry picking” behavior, in the sense that managers might tend to reduce CSR to “doing good” and put less efforts on CSR in terms of “avoiding bad” which, in turn, increases the risk of irresponsible business practices. (shrink)

Interest in the topic of wisdom-focused education has so far not resulted in empirically validated programs for teaching wisdom. To start filling this void, we explore the emerging empirical evidence concerning the fundamental elements required for understanding how one can foster wisdom, with a particular focus on wise reasoning. We define wise reasoning through a combination of intellectual humility, recognition of world in flux/change, open-mindedness to diverse viewpoints, and search for compromise/integration of diverse perspectives. In this article, we review evidence (...) concerning how wise reasoning can be facilitated through experiences, teaching materials, environments and cognitive strategies. We also focus on educators, reviewing emerging evidence on how the process of explaining and guiding others impacts one’s wisdom. We conclude by discussing the development of wisdom-focused education, proposing that greater attention to the situational demands and the variability in wisdom-related characteristics across social contexts should play a critical role in its development. (shrink)

In this short paper, we investigate the problems with the employment of the notion of freedom and voluntariness in libertarianism. We pretend to demonstrate that these two, as conceived of by libertarians, figure in as the main issue when it comes to justifying its major institutions, say: bequeathing, gifts, transactions (or what they label as “voluntary transfer”). The difficulty here boils down to the fact that a purely rights-based idea of freedom and voluntariness, the pretentions of Nozick notwithstanding, cannot do (...) alone, since it is the consideration whether we do something (e.g. bequeath, donate etc.) voluntarily (or freely) (in a non-moralized sense) that could account for the rights redistribution. Therefore, it seems that – at least sometimes – the notion of voluntariness (or freedom) is prior to the notion of rights. (shrink)

The article introduces substructural epistemic logics of belief supported by evidence. The logics combine normal modal epistemic logics with distributive substructural logics. Pieces of evidence are represented by points in substructural models and availability of evidence is modelled by a function on the point set. The main technical result is a general completeness theorem. Axiomatisations are provided by means of two-sorted Hilbert-style calculi. It is also shown that the framework presents a natural solution to the problem of logical omniscience.

In this paper, I address the controversy between Henry More and René Descartes on the indefinite extension of the world. I provide a new reading of Descartes’ famous final answer of 15 April 1649. I read the entire debate in the terms of a disagreement concerning the epistemological status of the necessity of our judgement about the extension of the universe. Accordingly, the disagreement on the infinity of the world constitutes a case of a more general disagreement on the nature (...) of the necessity of the theorems of Cartesian Physics. In particular, as concerns Descartes’ last reply, I argue that his assertion that a finite world is contradictory should be interpreted as a reply to More’s claim that the thesis of the infinity of the world, in so far as it cannot be grounded on the identity between matter and extension, does not express a logical necessity. Descartes’ assertion of the logical impossibility of a finite world, far from being, as it has always been read, a concession he made under the pressure of More’s objections, expresses the more radical element of the entire debate about the extension of the universe. (shrink)

Mindwandering is associated with both positive and negative outcomes. Among the latter, negative mood and negative cognitions have been reported. However, the underlying mechanisms linking mindwandering to negative mood and cognition are still unclear. We hypothesized that MW could either directly enhance negative thinking or indirectly heighten the accessibility of negative thoughts. In an undergraduate sample we measured emotional thoughts during the Sustained Attention on Response Task which induces MW, and accessibility of negative cognitions by means of the Scrambled Sentences (...) Task after the task. We also measured depressive symptoms and rumination. Results show that in individuals with elevated levels of depressive symptoms MW during SART predicts higher accessibility of negative thoughts after the task, rather than negative thinking during the task. These findings contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of MW and provide insight into the relationship between task-involvement and affect. (shrink)

This paper looks closely at previously enunciated axioms that specifically include phenomenology as the sense of a self in a perceptual world. This, we suggest, is an appropriate way of doing science on a first-person phenomenon. The axioms break consciousness down into five key components: presence, imagination, attention, volition and emotions. The paper examines anew the mechanism of each and how they interact to give a single sensation. An abstract architecture, the Kernel Architecture, is introduced as a starting point for (...) building computational models. The thrust of the paper is to relate the axioms to the kernel architecture and indicate that this opens a way of discussing some first-person issues: tests for consciousness, animal consciousness and Higher Order Thought. (shrink)