The epistemology of dialectical materialism emphasizes two characteristic features of the picture of the world existing in our minds. First, it presents itself as reflection, i.e., as an image of an objective reality that exists independent of our consciousness. Secondly, this picture provides a reflection of the real world and the regularities of its development that is only approximately complete. The following comment by Lenin is of fundamental significance in this connection: "Cognition is man's reflection of nature, but it is (...) not a simple, not a direct, not a complete reflection, but a process involving a series of abstractions, the shaping and formation of concepts, laws, and the like, various concepts, laws, etc. and embraces, conditionally and approximately, the universal regularity of nature which is eternally moving and developing". (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Particularism vs. Universalism Modern vs. Traditional Philosophy and Language Conceptual Decolonization and the Question of Democracy and Consensus The Problem of Linguistic Inadequacy Whither African Philosophy?

Patient competence, defined as the ability to reason, appreciate, understand, and express a choice is rarely discussed in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder, and coercive measures are seldom used. Nevertheless, a psychiatrist of psychologist may doubt whether OCD patients who refuse treatment understand their disease and the consequences of not being treated, which could result in tension between respecting the patient’s autonomy and beneficence. The purpose of this article is to develop a notion of competence that is grounded in clinical (...) practice and corresponds with the experiences of patients with obsessions and/or compulsions. We present a naturalistic case study giving both the patient’s and the therapist’s perspective based on in-depth interviews and a narrative analysis. The case study shows that competence is not merely an assessment by a therapist, but also a co-constructed reality shaped by the experiences and stories of patient and therapist. The patient, a medical student, initially told her story in a restitution narrative, focusing on cognitive rationality. Reconstructing the history of her disease, her story changed into a quest narrative where there was room for emotions, values and moral learning. This fitted well with the therapist’s approach, who used motivational interventions with a view to appealing to the patient’s responsibility to deal with her condition. We conclude that in practice both the patient and therapist used a quest narrative, approaching competence as the potential for practical reasoning to incorporate values and emotions. (shrink)

George Boole published the pamphlet The Mathematical Analysis of Logic in 1847. He believed that logic should belong to a universal mathematics that would cover both quantitative and nonquantitative research. With his pamphlet, Boole signalled an important change in symbolic logic: in contrast with his predecessors, his thinking was exclusively extensional. Notwithstanding the innovations introduced he accepted all traditional Aristotelean syllogisms. Nevertheless, some criticisms have been raised concerning Boole’s view of Aristotelean logic as the solution of algebraic equations. In order (...) to circumvent such criticisms, we show here how Boole’s conclusions may be deduced from the axioms and inference rules proposed in his pamphlet, from which Aristotle’s deductions in Prior Analytics (including those that are completed through an impossibility) can be stated as theorems. We clarify his method for dealing with both universal and particular premises by means of his symbol v and demystify some criticisms concerning the way he expressed particular premises. Boole’s conclusions for some of those premises for which according to Aristotle there is no deduction are also discussed. The deductive system presented here has the potential to provide a new perspective on Boole’s approach to logic in The Mathematical Analysis of Logic. (shrink)