We examine the ontogeny and phylogeny of object and fantasy play from a functional perspective. Each form of play is described from an evolutionary perspective in terms of its place in the total time and energy budgets of human and nonhuman juveniles. As part of discussion of functions of play, we examine sex differences, particularly as they relate to life in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness and economic activities of human and nonhuman primates. Object play may relate to foraging activities. (...) Although fantasy play has been viewed as limited to humans, we speculate that certain types of fantasy play may be present in some nonhuman primates. Fantasy play may enable juveniles to see situations from different perspectives. We conclude that fantasy play may have immediate effects and object play may have deferred effects. (shrink)

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is a debilitating mental health disorder that can easily become a treatment-resistant condition. Although effective therapies exist, only about half of the patients seem to benefit from them when we consider treatment refusal, dropout rates, and residual symptoms. Thus, providing effective augmentation to standard therapies could improve existing treatments. Group compassion-focused interventions have shown promise for reducing depression, anxiety, and avoidance related to various clinical problems, but this approach has never been evaluated for OCD individuals. However, cultivating compassion (...) for self and others seems crucial for OCD patients, given the accumulating research suggesting that fear of guilt, along with isolation and self-criticism, can strongly contribute to the development and maintenance of OCD. The primary aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the acceptability, tolerability, and effectiveness of an 8-week group compassion-focused intervention for reducing OCD symptoms, depression, fear of guilt and self-criticism, and increasing common humanity and compassionate self-reassuring skills in treatment-resistant OCD patients. Using a multiple baseline experimental design, the intervention was evaluated in a sample of OCD patients who had completed at least 6 months of CBT treatment for OCD, but who continued to suffer from significant symptoms. Participants were randomized to different baseline assessment lengths; they then received 8 weekly, 120-min group sessions of compassion-focused therapy for OCD, and then were tested again at post-treatment and at 1 month follow up. Despite the adverse external circumstances, by the end of treatment, all participants demonstrated reliable decreases in OCD symptoms, and these improvements were maintained at 4-week follow-up for seven of eight participants. The intervention was also associated with improvements in fear of guilt, self-criticism, and self-reassurance, but less consistent improvements in depression and common humanity. Participants reported high levels of acceptability of and satisfaction with the intervention. Results suggest that the intervention may be beneficial as either a stand-alone treatment or as an augmentation to other treatments. (shrink)

_The purpose _of the article is to introduce into scientific circulation works by Ukrainian scholar Taras Zakydalsky on the philosophy of Hryhorii Skovoroda. Taras Zakydalsky is a representative of the Ukrainian diaspora, philosopher, and member of Canadian NTSh (Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada). _Theoretical basis._ We consider the uniqueness of H. Skovoroda’s philosophy, which stimulates not only intellectually but also spiritually enlightens the reader. The reasons for the complex perception and interpretation of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s philosophy are highlighted. We have verified (...) the main methods of its interpretation given in the works by Dmytro Chyzhevskyi. The influence of philosophical thought of thinkers of Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Aristotle, Epicurus, the Church Fathers, and Tertullian has been studied. We have comprehended H. Skovoroda’s interpretation of the Bible as a two-layer existence, the symbolic world that makes the foundation of his philosophy. The peculiarity of the thinker’s division of the heart into "internal" and "external" is analyzed. Hryhorii Skovoroda’s position on the Good and the evil is stated. The Good is identified with God, and the evil – with the real world, the man can choose between the two. Much attention is paid to the understanding of man as a microcosm – rational thinking, and thought is the fundamental cause of human activity, which generates all existence. Hryhorii Skovoroda’s philosophy of metaphysics as the existence of three worlds is highlighted: the first is the macrocosm (the whole surrounding world), the second is the microcosm (the man), and the third is the symbolic world (the Bible). "Monodualism" as a characteristic feature of H. Skovoroda’s work is analyzed. We have highlighted H. Skovoroda’s attitude to the transcendence of God, which is not separated from the world but is present in it directly. The understanding of faith as a forced act of self-love is analyzed because by loving ourselves we love God. The criteria for true and false faith have been clarified. The significance of H. Skovoroda’s aphorism that _what is necessary is useful, and not useful is unnecessary_ is considered. Examples of ethical principles in H. Skovoroda’s philosophy are considered. Peculiarities of the concept HAPPINESS are revealed. This concept is a universal means of existence of the Good, its source is gratitude to God. _Originality_ of the article is in the systematic presentation of the philosophy of the heart by Hryhorii Skovoroda and the analysis of the integrity of the "inner man", the true meaning of life as interpreted by Taras Zakydalsky. _Conclusions_ summarize the "anthropological pragmatism" of the philosopher, whose main idea is to apply practical skills for the benefit of society. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 41-79.

At the risk of proving myself such a caviller, I want to ask a question which I have seldom heard raised, and which I have never seen discussed in anything that I have read about Berkeley. If I am right, it poses a problem for his immaterialism, not only different, but coming from a different direction, from those objections that are commonly levelled against him. If I am wrong, it will show how right Berkeley was to stress the difficulty of (...) using for one purpose our language which has become fashioned for another. At least, I hope that I shall not fail to be the ‘fair and ingenuous reader’for whom he asked. (shrink)

An assessment is made of Rudolf Otto's criticisms of Friedrich Schleiermacher's claim that religious feeling is to be interpreted as essentially involving a feeling of absolute dependence. Otto's criticisms are divided into two kinds. The first suggest that a feeling a dependence, even an absolute one, is the wrong sort of feeling to locate at the heart of religious consciousness. It is argued that this criticism is based on misinterpretations of Schleiermacher's view, which is in fact much closer to Otto's (...) than the latter appreciated. The second kind of criticism suggests that the feeling of absolute dependence cannot play the foundational role assigned to it by Schleiermacher, since it is itself a secondary response. It is argued not only that Otto provides no justification for this criticism, but that Otto's own position is incoherent unless Schleiermacher's view is accepted. (shrink)

This paper considers the claim that perceptual experience is “transparent”, in the sense that nothing other than the apparent public objects of perception are available to introspection by the subject of such experience. I revive and strengthen the objection that blurred vision constitutes an insuperable objection to the claim, and counter recent responses to the general objection. Finally the bearing of this issue on representationalist accounts of the mind is considered.

A. D. Smith; VI*—The Self and the Good, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 101–118, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

In this paper I want to examine a view of the Darwinian theory of evolution which was put forward fairly recently by A. R. Manser. His approach is of interest not only in itself, but also because it may be expanded to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of the science of biology in general. I shall not consider these further implications here, but shall concentrate on an examination of his thesis in the context in which it is raised. (...) My paper falls into two sections. In the first I shall state Manser's thesis and some of the arguments with which he supports it, and shall try to show how a series of objections raised by A. G. N. Flew and K. Connolly may be answered. In the second I shall offer on my own account a positive argument to provide a possible basis for his point of view, with the aim of indicating why the theory should be of the kind he suggests, and what form the study of evolution must take. (shrink)

An attempt is made to pinpoint the way in which perception is related to belief. Although, for familiar reasons, it is not true to say that we necessarily believe in the existence of the objects we perceive, nor that they actually have their ostensible characteristics, it is argued that the relation between perception and belief is more than merely contingent.There are two main issues to address. The first is that ‘collateral’ beliefs may impede perceptual belief. It is argued that this (...) still assigns an essential role to belief in perception, though the belief may be of an attenuated form. The second is Fred Dretske’s claim that even attenuated belief may be entirely absent from perception. It is argued that ‘non-epistemic’ perception can be understood only by employing the concept of ‘epistemic’ perception; that the former can occur only partially---i.e., within perceptions that are otherwise epistemic; and that by switching attention from the perception of objects to the Phenomenological tradition’s concern with the perception of world, we can see that perception must be entirely permeated with ‘doxastic’ force. (shrink)

This paper, which has both a historical and a polemical aspect, investigates the view, dominant throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that the sense of sight is, originally, not phenomenally three-dimensional in character, and that we must come to interpret its properly two-dimensional data by reference to the sense of 'touch'. The principal argument for this claim, due to Berkeley, is examined and found wanting. The supposedly confirming findings concerning 'Molyneux subjects' are also investigated and are shown to be either (...) irrelevant or disconfirming. Recent investigations on infant and neonatal perception are discussed and are also found to be disconfirming. An innatist version of the theory is then considered and is shown to be undermined by the largely 'Gibsonian' character of early space-perception. Finally three recent arguments in favour of the theory - two from psychologists, one from a philosopher - are considered and answered. (shrink)

The monograph shows that in the last 50 years theoretical linguistics remains a compendium of mutually contradicting doctrines on multiple levels: the level of general theories of language, the level of its main constituents (the lexicon, syntax, and the lexical-syntactic interface that connects them), and the lower levels of specific linguistic problems (such as lexical polysemy, grammatical meanings, etc.). The contradictions of contemporary linguistic theories are indicative of a deep crisis. Evolutionary-synthetic theory of language is aimed at overcoming this crisis. (...) It implements a multidisciplinary approach that describes the language a) in evolutionary and ontogenetic development and b) in close interaction with other human subsystems: the mental representation of the world, human activity and social interaction. Language is defined as a dual system developing in ontogeny: 'universal sensory sublanguage + ethnically specific functional sublanguage' where the sensory sublanguage is used to describe the 'visible' world (accessible to the senses), and the functional sublanguage is employed to describe the conceivable world ('comprehended by human mind'). Within the framework of the approach presented, many problems are solved: 1) the cognitive (non-verbal) language for representing language meanings; 2) diversity and unity of languages (using the structure alternative to Chomsky's Universal Grammar); 3) the main (original) function of the language; 4) the cognitive language of thought (its basis is the lexical and grammatical meanings of the sensory sublanguage); 5) dual (functionally prototypical) structure of human categories; 6) mechanisms in the early acquisition of lexical and grammatical meanings; 7) the meaning (assignment) of the syntactic structure of a sentence, etc. The book deals with a wide range of issues related to human cognition, glottogenesis and anthropogenesis, universal cognitive structures for the representation of objects, actions and situations, so it will be of interest not only to linguists, but also to psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers. (shrink)

At the risk of proving myself such a caviller, I want to ask a question which I have seldom heard raised, and which I have never seen discussed in anything that I have read about Berkeley. If I am right, it poses a problem for his immaterialism, not only different, but coming from a different direction, from those objections that are commonly levelled against him. If I am wrong, it will show how right Berkeley was to stress the difficulty of (...) using for one purpose our language which has become fashioned for another. At least, I hope that I shall not fail to be the ‘fair and ingenuous reader’for whom he asked. (shrink)