Drawing upon contemporary virtue ethics theory, The Model of The Principled Advocate and The Pathological Partisan is introduced. Profiles are developed of diametrically opposed archetypes of public relations and advertising practitioners. The Principled Advocate represents the advocacy virtues of humility, truth, transparency, respect, care, authenticity, equity, and social responsibility. The Pathological Partisan represents the opposing vices of arrogance, deceit, secrecy, manipulation, disregard, artifice, injustice, and raw self-interest. One becomes either a Principled Advocate or a Pathological Partisan by habitually enacting (...) or embodying the virtues or vices in the context of professional practices. (shrink)

Suicide as a form of political protest is a little studied social phenomenon that cannot be dismissed simply as being irrational or patholognomic. We consider protest suicide to be a meaningful social action as purposive political act intended to change oppressive policies or practices. This paper synthesizes theoretical propositions associated with suicide in general, and protest suicide in particular, so as to construct a general explanatory model of protest suicide as a social phenomenon. Then, it analyzes protest suicide as (...) a meaningful social action. People considering protest suicide have to discern the logic of the situation in which such action is to take place. This involves answering two fundamental questions: Is suicide an acceptable course of social action? Is the envisaged protest suicide likely to achieve their hopes, aspirations and goals? How these questions are answered gives rise to a set of protest suicide archetypes. Our analysis generates a more sophisticated understanding of the potential reasons for, and motivations behind, protest suicide as a social phenomenon. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and (...) Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

In this essay I analyze two emerging theistic accounts of the laws of logic, one precipitated by theistic conceptual realism and the other from an archetype-ectype paradigm in Reformed Scholasticism. The former posits the laws of logic as uncreated and necessary divine thoughts, whereas the latter thinks of those laws as contingent, accommodated forms of a pre-existing archetypal rationality. After the analysis of the two accounts, I offer an explication of the theological rationale motivating the archetype-ectype model of the (...) laws of logic, and apply that model to recent discussions on theological paradox, abstract objects, and the function of natural-theological argumentation in apologetics. Finally, I respond to three anticipated objections against the archetype-ectype model. (shrink)

Increasing farmers’ acceptance and adoption of environmentally beneficial farming practices is essential for mitigating negative impacts of agriculture. To support adoption through policy, it is necessary to understand which types of farms or farmers do or do not apply such practices. However, farmers are not a homogeneous group and their behavior is subject to a complex array of structural, socioeconomic, and socio-psychological influences. Reducing this complexity, farmer typologies or archetypes are useful tools for understanding differing motivations for the uptake of (...) sustainable farming practices. Previous investigations of the role of farmer archetypes in the adoption of such practices rely on either purely qualitative or purely quantitative methods in data collection, typology creation, and hypothesis testing. Our study combines both approaches by classifying survey respondents into farmer types based on a previous Q methodological study. We then use these types in a two-part regression model that aims to explain participation in agri-environmental schemes and the level of scheme participation. To control for farm structural factors, we additionally link our questionnaire data to secondary data from the farm accountancy data network. Results indicate that in Austria, AES are attractive to all types of farmers, but the level of participation in these schemes differs between archetypes: Profitability-oriented farmers participate less, and nature-oriented farmers participate more than other types. This suggests that monetary compensations for sustainable farming practices are not perceived as sufficient by certain groups of farmers, and policy makers need to consider additional kinds of incentives. (shrink)

Metaphysics, Psychology and Philosophy have defined the notion of archetype. We will argue that there is another concept, the “anarchetype” which could escape to the centralization and to any pre‑defined structure building on archetypes. Anarchetype belongs to anarchic and unpredictable structures denying center and logos. It could be used to study marginal or non coherent works far beyond occidental pattern. Eschatype is finally analysed. Some structures without any archetype have to draw an internal evolution before building any model or (...) order. If eschatype is not initially known, it finally shows up and exposes explanations, meanings and even a structure. Eschatype may then give birth to a new theme. It finally may be found in other supports or works, structure and archetype. (shrink)

Do people classify nature in ways that can be described as archetypes? Could it be that these can be interpreted as health promotive? More and more researchers today suggest that archetypes can be used to analyze, describe, and develop green spaces. In parallel, an increasing number of research results since the 1980s have shown that human health and well-being are positively affected by stays in certain nature areas. The qualities in these nature areas which stand out to be most health-promoting (...) are interpreted to be properties of nature that humans through evolution are prepared to perceive in a positive way. In this study, 547 respondents in southern Sweden answered a questionnaire on properties in natural areas. Through cluster analysis, these properties have been grouped into 10 types of nature and landscape. The 10 clusters are related to specific phenomena and places in Scandinavian nature, which could be described as archetypal. These natural phenomena and places are discussed, partly based on references to archaic Scandinavian mythology, Scandinavian lifestyle, and cultural canon, and partly on research on evolution, human preferences, and how nature can affect human health. We discuss how these nature archetypes evoke anxiety, fear, and distancing as well as calmness, tranquility, and connection. However, researchers have so far focused on how visits to natural environments have affected the sympathetic nervous system, and not realized the possibility of including the calm and connection system as well as the oxytocin in their explanatory models. In a follow-up article, we intend to develop a model for how the nature archetypes can interact with the calm and connection system. (shrink)

In this essay David Kennedy argues that children represent one vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult–child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. Following Herbert Marcuse's invocation of a “new sensibility,” Kennedy argues that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny — the long formative period of human childhood and the paedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle — makes of the adult–child collective of school a (...) primary site for the reconstruction of belief. After exploring child–adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what John Dewey called “impulse” and “habit,” Kennedy identifies three key dimensions of dialogic schooling, all of which are grounded in a fourth: the form of dialogical group discourse called community of philosophical inquiry, which is based on the problematization and reconstruction of concepts through critical argumentation. As a discourse model, CPI grounds practice in all of the dialogic school's emergent curricular spaces, whether science or mathematics, whether literature, art, or philosophy. Second, CPI opens a functional space for shared decision making and collaborative governance, making of school an exemplary model of direct democracy. Finally, CPI as a site for the critical interrogation of concepts encountered in the curriculum and as a site for democratic governance leads naturally to expression in activist projects that model an emergent “new reality principle” through concrete solutions to practical problems on local and global levels. (shrink)

Kepler, the father of modern physical astronomy, believed that the world is ordered by Archetypes . As quaint as this may seem, I argue that Kepler's archetypes provided methodological and epistemological solutions to problems in physical astronomy acknowledged during his time. ;Kepler used the assumption of a harmony between the archetypal and physical world to argue for the legitimacy of certain methodological innovations. The main difficulty facing astronomers at that time was the availability of observationally equivalent competing astronomical hypotheses. Kepler's (...) solution was to argue that the hypotheses could be distinguished between by proper testing and by bringing in considerations from other disciplines, especially physics. Kepler's account of the proper testing of hypotheses, though modern in appearance, was grounded in his archetypal cosmology. The use of physics in astronomy, also a modern innovation, was not considered to be methodologically sound during Kepler's time unless certain conditions were met. Under Kepler's archetypal cosmology these conditions were met, thereby legitimating the use of physics in astronomy. ;Kepler's archetypes play another role in his physical astronomy. The Aristotelian account of physics still dominant was qualitative in character. The use of mathematical physics was acceptable if it was grounded in qualitative theory, which Kepler was unable to fully provide. I argue that Kepler's archetypal cosmology enabled him to overcome this conceptual barrier. While Kepler agreed with Aristotle that mathematics is unable to reveal anything about physical causes, he believed that the archetypes are not limited in this manner. For Kepler, God's only reason for creating physical powers was to instantiate the archetypes; hence a study of archetypes can provide information about physical causes. When Kepler was unable to attach mathematical models to qualitative physical theory, he attached them to archetypal models, thereby legitimating their use in physics. ;Kepler's archetypes are no longer scientifically significant. At the time, however, they functioned to break down some of the conceptual barriers to his new physical astronomy. As a result, understanding Kepler's archetypes is of paramount importance for understanding his role in the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (shrink)

This paper presents evidence for a psychological coding process that meets the criteria that define such processes in organic nature and culture. The recognition of these previously unknown encoding sequences is derived from the recent formulation of an adaptive mental module of the mind—the emotion processing mind—that has evolved to cope with traumatic events and the unique, language derived, explicit human awareness of personal mortality. The emergent awareness of death has served as a selection factor for the evolution of a (...) two-system, emotion-processing mind, with conscious and unconscious components, an arrangement that allows for the invocation of conscious denial, which in turn has fostered the use of encoding when faced with death-related traumas. The paper offers several ways in which evolved mental adaptations have features that are shared with those that are biological. Many aspects of these mental adaptive efforts are comparable to attempts at defense that are carried out by the immune system. In addition, the adaptive approach has been the foundation for the discovery of laws of communication, and thus of the mind, that are on a parallel with those found through mathematical models drawn from Newtonian physics. (shrink)

Archetypal medicine and past life therapy have received only scant attention in mainstream medical and psychological literature. Nonetheless, the epistemological and practice assumptions underlying Alfred Ziegler's model of archetypal medicine are highly congruent with those of past life therapy and both proffer salient alternatives to traditional reductionistic practice in psychotherapy and medicine. This paper explores the manner in which both seek to understand the meanings embedded in "health" and "illness" through a metaphorical interpretation of symptoms. Dualistic thinking gives way (...) to unitary consciousness as we begin to understand symptomatology in the larger scheme of a human being's entire lived experience. The transcendent, psychospiritual work of past life therapy is viewed in integrated partnership with archetypal medicine in healing the whole person rather than merely assessing symptoms in isolation and remediating them through mechanistic techniques and external applications of treatments. (shrink)

If we are looking for an Ur-explanation for the persistence of the Ur-myth, or any other myth, in our literature, could we not more directly find it in the structure of a mind which does not have to remember in order to imitate? The occasion of both myth and literature is the social life of the species which, in Starobinski's sense, is a history of continual eviction; but as regards the apparatus of thought by which this social life is reflected (...) in art it is more a history of assimilation and repetition. "The work of the brain," to cite a recent article in Scientific American, "is to create a model of a possible world rather than to record and transmit to the mind a world that is metaphysically true…Different worlds are presumably constructed by similar species."1 And, presumably, similar worlds are constructed by similar species. Weisinger hints briefly at something like this in his essay "The Mythic Origins of the Creative Process," but one has the clear impression, as his title suggests, that he would like to have the [myth/ritual] cart before the creative horse.2 However much this may satisfy our longing to crown our literature, if not creativity itself, with a mythic genealogy, it seems a wistful hypothesis. One might just as well look upon the remains of early man's shelters, marvel that they too had roofs, just like ours, and conclude that therefore our roofs have their origin in theirs.· 1. Harry J. Jerison, "Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind," Scientific American, January 1976, p. 99.· 2. Herbert Weisinger, The Agony and the Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth , p. 250.Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Irony and Drama: A Poetics and The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on "Waiting for Godot.". (shrink)

Leadership archetypes are embodied and emotionally powerful identity profiles related to cultural conceptualizations of leadership and implicit leadership theories. The currently dominant archetype reinforces “think leader, think male” and racial biases that have been long- and well-documented in leadership research, and more recently highlighted as integrated into ethical leadership models. The pervasiveness of the archetype of leaders as agentic solo heroes leading through competition and power over others blinds us to other ways of leading. Unpacking archetype reveals that our culturally (...) dominant narrative is what restricts leadership to a narrow group of people, creating the misperception of a shortage of leadership talent. The dominant cultural archetype is traced back through time to figures in culturally foundational texts, and forward in time to modern stories, art, and media. An alternative leadership archetype is developed through historical and theological analysis, revealing a leadership archetype in Mary of Nazareth as a young, pregnant, ethnically oppressed leader, and her _Magnificat_ as a leadership vision statement oriented toward justice and the common good. This analysis revitalizes a neglected implicit theory or archetype of leadership, which had been crushed under layers of patriarchy, comprising leadership through supportive, creative collaboration; self-named holistic identity; feminine voice and values; justice-based vision; and a contemplative spiritual foundation. Implications for business ethics, organizations, and leadership are discussed. (shrink)

Character structures underlie everyone’s personality. When rigidly defended, they limit us; yet as they become more flexible, they can reveal sources of animation, renewal and authenticity. _The Matrix and Meaning of Character_ guides the reader into an awareness of the archetypal depths that underlie character structures, presenting an original developmental model in which current analytic theories are synthesised. The authors examine nine character structures, animating them with fairy tales, mythic images and case material, creating a bridge between the traditional (...) language of psychopathology and the universal realm of image and symbol. This book will appeal to all analytical psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who want to strengthen their clinical expertise. It will help clinicians to extend their clinical insights beyond a strictly behavioural, medical or cognitive approach, revealing the potential of the human spirit. (shrink)

People frequently make ethical choices they later regret. Causal Loop Archetypes offer a basic systems framework for analyzing the unintended consequences of personal and professional ethical decisions. Pressure or enticement or defensiveness can stymie individuals’ rational sensemaking. Causal Loop Thinking, and in particular the “Fixes That Fail” Archetype, draw on the familiar decision model of identifying the problem, specifying the alternative courses of action andtheir consequences, to guide our final choice. As students grapple with their own conflicts and business (...) school faculty look for tools to anticipate professional ethical dilemmas, Causal Loop Thinking can expand our awareness of the context of choices and actions, thus leading to a more fully assessed decision. (shrink)

In this essay, Russell G. Moses argues that Charles S. Peirce’s article “Evolutionary Love” establishes a general normative framework for a logic of evolutionary, progressive imagination that can be used to elucidate an evolutionary continuity between the normative works of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Alain Locke. This exercise contributes to an understanding of pragmatism as a philosophy that seizes insights from evolution in order to normatively reconstruct dynamic meanings of truth, reality, ethics, politics, and art. In a dynamic (...) class='Hi'>model of progressive evolution — one homologous to the Golden Rule of “love your neighbor” — we find a normative cosmology that animates the moral imagination of philosophy toward what Addams called “democracy and social ethics.” Moses concludes that in the Peircean model, together with subsequent developments, we may ultimately apprehend that evolution suggests a general form of development that may be hypothesized as a worthy normative guide for universal progressive education. (shrink)

The article addresses three theses on judgment in general and legal judgment in particular, starting from Peirce’s and Dewey’s claims about them. The first thesis, ontological, concerns the content of an act of judgment and says that judgment is about an object instantiating a property (not about a property instantiated by an object). The second, alethic, concerns the relation between judgment and truth and says that judgment is the attribution of a truth value to a proposition. The third, genetic, deals (...) with the moments of judgment claiming it is a process susceptible of being articulated in such moments. Its fundamental moments are 1) hypothesis, 2) inquiry, 3) result. The article claims that the three theses interconnect and hold for both judgment in general and legal judgment, given that the latter is a model of the former; so a complex conception of judgment is articulated, discussing also its relations with assertion and inference. (shrink)

Modelling consent is a process prior to any discussion about it, be it theoretical or practical. Here, after examining consent, I shall attempt to present a “logical generator” that produces all different cases of consent, so that afterwards we may articulate a two-dimensional model which will enable us to coherently demonstrate all possible types of consent. The resulting model will be combined with Aristotle’s square of opposition, offering us even greater insight. I shall claim that full informed consent (...) is an archetype, not realized in most cases; it is just one case out of hundreds more. I shall conclude with an educational model for consent, the principle of specificity, arguing that if we wish to both understanding consent and become more adept in exercising it, we need a targeted educational system – not just “better education” in general. (shrink)

In the course of the twentieth century natural sciences became an integral part not only of the industrial production but also of the semiotics of audio-visual and literary cultures. In the absence of legitimating traditions the techno-scientific models and relations appear to be a readily available habitual source of creative dynamics. Yet this domination contains a paradox. The application of analogy in, for example, visual culture does not work the same way as in mathematics. In the latter when a relation (...) between two points is known it is always possible to assign to a third point its counterpart exactly. In the former it is only the potentiality of the fourth point that analogy can offer. To make the analogy work an onto-poetic step is needed. Repeated applications of such steps detach the model from the original source. The model re-emerges as pata-physics, in its new re-coded art form and territory of application. Models of, for example, atoms, rainbows, meteors, automatons, radiation, entropy, quantum effects, astro-catastrophic singularity, fractals, etc. find their way into literature and arts. This results in new divisions of space and time that in turn determine the shape of archetypal icons through which contemporary meanings are communicated and actualized. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that spiritual experiences are related to increased physiological activity of the frontal and temporal lobes and decreased activity of the right parietal lobe. The current study determined if similar relationships exist between self-reported spirituality and neuropsychological abilities associated with those cerebral structures for persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Participants included 26 adults with TBI referred for neuropsychological assessment. Measures included the Core Index of Spirituality (INSPIRIT); neuropsychological indices of cerebral structures: temporal lobes (Wechsler Memory Scale-III), right (...) parietal lobe (Judgment of Line Orientation), and frontal lobes (Trail Making Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test). As hypothesized, spirituality was significantly negatively correlated with a measure of right parietal lobe functioning and positively correlated (nonsignificantly) with measures of left temporal lobe functioning. Contrary to hypotheses, correlations between spirituality and measures of frontal lobe functioning were zero or negative (and nonsignificant). The data support a neuropsychological model that proposes that spiritual experiences are related to decreased activity of the right parietal lobe, which may be associated with decreased awareness of the self (transcendence) and increased activity of the left temporal lobe, which may be associated with the experience of specific religious archetypes (religious figures and symbols). (shrink)

Medieval literature is argumentative, since it argues for an idealized vision of reality acceptable to a proposed audience. Its narrative mode is description, performed according to the principles of the art of topical invention, derived from Cicero's De Inventione. The topoi or loci are features (circumstantiae) of a person or thing that are common to it as a class, such as tempus or locus for things. When filled out, according to the point of view desired by the author, public, context, (...) etc., they become the attributes (argumenta) of a particular human being or action.According to the author, all descriptions should be interpreted by reference to such a technique of topical invention, a method which will allow new explanations of the texts. The examples of the locus amoenus in various Latin and French works show how traditional and conventional models were adapted and specialized, by various devices, to fit new formal or conceptual intentions and new contexts. The examples and models proposed to the student learning composition by Masters such as Matthew of Vendôme, were given not to be copied, but to be imitated through topical invention, that is adaptation to a particular intention, through specializing devices. (shrink)

A genuine commitment to ethics and compliance (E&C) programs means that top management adopt them for what they represent and not for other purposes. Only then can they truly build socially responsible behavior and a successful and sustainable business, as stated in the latest international standard for compliance management practice (ISO 37301:2021), which we found to be consistent with a new business narrative as conceptualized in Freeman's work. However, it also requires that top managers place a moral value on these (...) practices, rather than simply using them for instrumental reasons. Building on Kohlberg's six stages of moral development as applied to managers' moral thinking, this manuscript offers a model to explain how top managers' moral valuing of these practices varies along a moral reasoning continuum, resulting in four distinct modes. It also theorizes that each mode of moral valuing yields an archetype of E&C programs. It thus offers a new approach that contributes to the business ethics and management literature by incorporating a morally grounded perspective on the adoption and implementation of E&C practices and how it might shape their features and characteristics. It also aims to improve professional practice and business contributions to Freeman's ideas through genuine ethics‐based E&C programs. (shrink)

‘Scaffolded learning’ describes a cluster of instructional techniques designed to move students from a novice position toward greater understanding, such that they become independent learners. Our Socratic Model of Scaffolded Learning includes two phases not normally included in discussions of scaffolded learning, the preparatory and problematizing phases. Our article will illuminate this blind spot by arguing that these crucial preliminary elements ought to be considered an integral part of a scaffolding model. If instructors are cognizant of the starting (...) position of students, then students are more likely to develop a proper sense of autonomy. We turn, then, to examples from Socrates, the archetypal teacher, that cast light on the importance of preparation and problematizing for the student. Finally, we address the concern that integrating these preliminary elements into scaffolded learning would unnecessarily complicate a useful and effective pedagogical method. Ultimately, if it is effective and autonomous learners we wish to cultivate in the classroom, then something like SMSL must include preliminary elements that calibrate the instructor’s approach to the members of the class. After all, the unexamined student is not worth teaching. (shrink)

" In Imagination and the Meaningful Brain, psychoanalyst Arnold Modell claims that subjective human experience must be included in any scientific...

Abstract.Since the gene splicing debates of the 1980s, the public has been exposed to an ongoing sequence of genetic and reproductive technologies. Many issue areas have outcomes that lose track of people's inner values or engender opposing religious viewpoints defying final resolution. This essay relocates the discussion of what is an acceptable application from the individual to the societal level, examining technologies that stand to address large numbers of people and thus call for policy resolution, rather than individual fiat, in (...) their application. A major source of guidance is the “Genetic Frontiers” series of professional dialogues and conferences held by the National Conference for Community and Justice from 2002 to 2004. Genetic testing, human gene therapy, genetic engineering of plants and animals, and stem cell technology are examined. While differences in perspective on the beginning of life persist, a stepwise approach to the examination of genetic testing reveals areas of general agreement. Stewardship of life, human co‐creativity with the divine, and social justice help define the bounds of application of genetic engineering and therapy; compassionate care plays a major role in establishing stem cell policy. Active, sustained dialogue is a useful resource for enabling sharing of religious values and crystallization of policies. (shrink)

Aristotle is oftentimes viewed through a strictly philosophical lens as heir to Plato and has having introduced logical rigor where an emphasis on the theory of Forms formerly prevailed. It must be appreciated that Aristotle was the son of a physician, and that his inculcation of the thought of other Greek philosophers addressing health and the natural elements led to an extremely broad set of biologically- and medically-related writings. As this article proposes, Aristotle deepened the fourfold theory of the elements (...) with anatomic and physiologic observations. In books like History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and the lost Anatomai, he actively dissected organisms and recorded his findings. The corpus of medically-related literature Aristotle developed had a direct influence on subsequent Greek thinkers, including Galen, and on Medieval Islamic and modern Western practitioners such as William Harvey. Aristotle's ideas continue to influence modern medical thinkers in Europe and America through both his interpretation by European philosophers gaining the attention of medical humanists, and his writings' enduring impact on medical researchers balancing scientific with more personalistic approaches to medicine. (shrink)

The estrangement between genetic scientists and theologians originating in the 1960s is reflected in novel combinations of human thought (subject) and genes (investigational object), paralleling each other through the universal process known in chaos theory as self-similarity. The clash and recombination of genes and knowledge captures what Philip Hefner refers to as irony, one of four voices he suggests transmit the knowledge and arguments of the religion-and-science debate. When viewed along a tangent connecting irony to leadership, journal dissemination, and the (...) activities of the "public intellectual" and the public at large, the sequence of voices is shown to resemble the passage of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, tRNA, and protein, and from cell nucleus to surrounding environment. In this light, Hefner's inquiry into the voices of Zygon is bound up with the very subject matter Zygon covers. (shrink)