Living with a life-limiting cancer illness can entail a turmoil of feelings such as constant fear of loss, suffering and dying. Because patients live longer with life-limiting illness, there is a need for enhanced understanding of how people make sense of and cope with the complicated aspects that this life situation brings on. In this article, we explore how bloggers with advanced cancer use metaphors as ways of making sense of their experiences. Our study is theoretically grounded in Conceptual Metaphor (...) Theory, where metaphors are seen as a powerful phenomenon that both reflects and affects our thinking. The data consist of a corpus of blogs written in Swedish by individuals with advanced cancer, and the findings from our linguistic metaphor analysis are consistently interpreted against the backdrop of literature on coping. Our study thus highlights the intersection of linguistic metaphor analysis and psychological theories of coping by illustrating the many and complex functions metaphors can have as part of sense-making processes. Our hermeneutic approach enables us to show some differences among the three most pervasive metaphor domains in our material, battle, journey and imprisonment: the journey and imprisonment domains are more flexible than the battle domain in terms of the different kinds of coping strategies that are actualised by the bloggers’ use of metaphors. One particular finding from our analysis is the way in which the bloggers make use of metaphors to compartmentalise experiences and emotions. Our contention is that careful attention to the metaphors used by patients can improve communication in healthcare and enhance understanding of the complex role language use plays in coping processes more generally. By highlighting the relation between metaphor use and coping, our analysis also provides a way to discuss coping strategies based on the patient’s own use of language. (shrink)

Bringing between two covers the most influential and accessible articles on Plato's Republic, this collection illuminates what is widely held to be the most important work of Western philosophy and political theory. It will be valuable not only to philosophers, but to political theorists, historians, classicists, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

Artykuł przedstawia metodę opisu analitycznego w zastosowaniu do teorii pytań. Metoda ta, zrekonstruowana przez Tadeusza Czeżowskiego, a aplikowana szeroko w Szkole Lwowsko-‑Warszawskiej, znajduje zastosowanie przede wszystkim na preteoretycznym etapie badań, tj. do konstrukcji siatki pojęciowej danej dyscypliny i klasyfikacji dziedziny badań. Jako przykład zastosowania tej metody wskazana została teoria pytań Kazimierza Ajdukiewicza oraz jej rozwinięcia, a zwłaszcza opublikowana niedawno monografia Adama Jonkisza. Omówione zostały metody alternatywne względem opisu analitycznego ze względu na dobór materiału empirycznego i perspektywę teoretyczną. Na tym tle (...) pokazane zostały różnice między odmiennymi nurtami w badaniach erotetycznych i źródła nieporozumień między przedstawicielami tych nurtów. (shrink)

This article explores the role of an international open society of mental health stakeholders in raising awareness of values and thereby reducing the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse. There is evidence that hidden values play a key role in rendering psychiatry vulnerable to being used abusively for purposes of social or political control. Recent work in values-based practice aimed at raising awareness of values between people of different ethnic origins has shown the importance of what we call “values auto-blindness” – (...) a lack of awareness of one’s own values as a key part of our background “life-world” – in driving differential rates of involuntary psychiatric treatment between ethnic groups. It is argued that the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse stems from values auto-blindness operating on the judgments of rationality implicit in psychiatric diagnostic concepts. Acting like a “hall of mirrors,” an international open society of mental health stakeholders would counter the effects of values auto-blindness through enhanced mutual understanding of the values embedded in our respective life-worlds across and between the diverse perspectives of its constituents. The article concludes by noting that a model for the required open society is available in the contemporary interdisciplinary field of philosophy and psychiatry. (shrink)

Author: Pałubicka Anna Title: CHARACTERISTICS OF EUROPEAN MODERNISM IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE (Charakterystyka kultury modernizmu europejskiego w perspektywie filozofii i kultury) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2010, vol:.10, number: 2010/1, pages: 7-24 Keywords: EUROPEAN MODERNISM, PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE, ACTION, OBSERVER Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The author distinguishes two attitudes toward the world: (1) the attitude of an action which involves engagement, care, values, and interests; (2) the attitude (...) of a distanced observer (i.e. the theoretical-contemplative one). The paper assumes that the attitude of action precedes historically the attitude of observer. The latter has been born in ancient Greece of classical period due to the Platonic philosophy and the overcoming of magic-mythical thought. Since then, although they have changed and developed, both perspectives have been widely present in European culture and therefore should be considered to be a part of European cultural heritage. It is said that European modernism guarantees a coexistence of both attitudes. A modern European, thus, is able to act intentionally as well as to observe his own action from a distance. Modernism implies also an axiological priority of theoretical perspective (identified with the Kantian ‘universal reason’) over the perspective of action which is not free from prejudice. In comparison with earlier periods of European culture, the theoretical-contemplative perspective of Modernism is defined in terms of perception and sensual experience and their further reinterpretations. (shrink)

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid this contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures of decision making rather than complex real-life social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address this blind spot, we investigated the effects of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision making in men (...) and women using a standardized cognitive measure and a novel task that simulated a real-life social situation. Participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor or an equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed participants were further characterized as high- or low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed that the experimental manipulation was effective. On the IGT, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders made significantly riskier decisions than those characterized as high-cortisol responders. Similarly, in the online chatroom, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders were, relative to those in the Non-Stress group, significantly more likely to make risky decisions. Together, these results suggest that at lower levels of cortisol both men and women tend to make riskier decisions in both economic and social spheres. (shrink)

Tematem artykułu jest etyczny problem klonowania ludzi. Zaprezentowane zostają w nim najważniejsze argumenty przeciwko klonowaniu obecne w powieści Kazuo Ishiguro Nie opuszczaj mnie. Wśród argumentów moralnych przeciwko klonowaniu ludzi przeanalizowane zostają: argument z instrumentalizacji oraz wewnętrznego życia klonów; z ograniczenia wolności jednostki oraz z jej unieszczęśliwienia; z prawa do posiadania wyjątkowej tożsamości i otwartej przyszłości; ze szkód psychicznych i rozchwiania tożsamości; z naturalnego prawa jednostki do relacji rodzinnych. Na koniec autor przeformułuje argument z mądrości odrazy na argument z mądrości współczucia.

In the first part of the article true expressions and false expressions are presented that served A. W. Burks to build a formal system of logic of causal propositions along with considering their later use in the system built in 1963. In the second part of the article the possibility of conducting an axiomatic proof of the theorem on adding a superfluous condition is analyzed. The consequences are also shown of substituting a negation of the same prepositional variable for the (...) propositional variable and conditions are analyzed of substitution for propositional variables and possibilities of avoiding those difficulties. (shrink)

Przedmiotem tekstu jest rozróżnienie między dobrocią i cnotą oraz złem i występkiem, wprowadzone przez Hannah Arendt na podstawie lektury powieści Hermanna Melville’a Billy Budd. Rozróżnienie to analizuję, odnosząc się do historii życia Romulusa Gaity, bohatera powieści autobiograficznej Mój ojciec Romulus, której autorem jest australijski etyk Raimond Gaita. W paragrafie 1 zajmuję się ową dystynkcją, wskazując na przewartościowanie takich pojęć, jak cnota i występek w powieści Melville’a oraz jego rozumienie cnoty. Następnie staram się odpowiedzieć na pytanie, dlaczego Gaita pisze o swym (...) ojcu, używając kategorii charakteru, a nie cnoty. Dalej podejmuję refleksję nad relacją między cnotą, charakterem, dobrocią a chorobą psychiczną Romulusa. Na koniec odpowiadam na pytanie, jaki jest metafizyczny fundament, na którym Gaita formułuje przekonanie o wyższości Dobra i dobroci nad cnotą oraz pokazuję, jakie konkrety składają się na przyjmowaną przez Romulusa etykę dobroci. (shrink)

The extensive community use of complementary medicine can no longer be overlooked in the practice of hospital medicine. Protocols need to be developed and implemented so that health professionals can deal with the issues surrounding the use of CM. Policy development has generally focussed on the supply of CM in hospital but another approach, which is based on consideration of the ethical and legal context, is presented here. Such an approach demands clarification of institutional policy for individuals who are competent (...) and those who are incapable of self-administration or non-competent. (shrink)

The growing reliance on non-governmental independent regulators in many social and economic domains, including corporate financial reporting, has brought to the fore concerns over their regulatory accountability. This study looks at one aspect of the regulatory due process-regulatory impact assessment. Drawing on the analytical framework developed by Bovens : 447–468, 2007), we evaluate the contribution of IA as an instrument for enhancing regulatory accountability in the context of the Financial Reporting Council, an independent regulator for the accountancy profession in the (...) UK. The study’s findings suggest that, despite an increasing level of sophistication in the manner in which IA is used within FRC, the contribution of IA to regulatory accountability remains limited. Specifically, there are concerns as to whether IA is used to achieve a transparent and fair regulatory process or simply to maintain an image of good governance and justify policy decisions that would have been made even in the absence of IA. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper considers two studies that address negative affective states and moral reasoning while taking the Defining Issues Tests. Both studies confirmed earlier findings that the DIT dilemma, ‘Heinz and the Drug,’ and the DIT2 dilemma, ‘Famine,’ are related to increased anger and sadness and decreased moral reasoning. Similar findings were observed in the context of a video consideration of a real-life dilemma paralleling these two dilemmas. Comparable findings pertaining to Famine were also observed among three samples of different (...) moral judgment developmental levels, further implicating the role of dilemma content where the trends observed are concerned. Overall, both studies illustrated similar patterns of affective states and moral reasoning across all considered DIT/dit2 dilemmas thereby offering further evidence of the joint involvement of rational deliberation and affective states in the consideration of DIT/dit2 dilemmas. (shrink)

The article tries to answer the following questions: Why did Lewis Carroll\'s ideas, expressed in the form of fairy tales, fascinate numerous analytical philosophers? What does Carroll\'s contribution to the contemporary logic and philosophy consist in? The basic thesis of the article is that Lewis Carroll - remaining in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of David Hume\'s and George Berkeley\'s philosophy - supplied material illustrating the problems connected with the use of language. He showed how improper use of language leads to formation (...) of philosophical problems. The article presents Carroll\'s output. He was one of the pioneers of symbolic logic that he developed in Boole\'s and De Morgan\'s tradition - in the field of the so-called recreation mathematics that he popularized in the form of riddles, puzzles, doublets and puns, compared by some logicians to a formal system. The article presents the essence of the theory of language developed by Carroll, in which language may be something hermetic with only one person having access to it (the case of Humpty Dumpty), but also something common, something social (Alice\'s conversation with the White King). Attention is paid to the fact that Carroll differentiated between what is nonsensical and what is absurd (the criterion being its relation to logic). It is pointed that Carroll\'s aim was first of all discovering the nonsense that is hidden behind the formulation of a metaphysical problem. In the article also the connections are studied between Carroll and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the relation between them being seen in the view that absurd introduced by means of humor is a kind of vaccine that is supposed to protect us from forming absurdity in philosophy. In conclusion it is stated that Carroll\'s ideas that are the most significant for analytic philosophers are concerned with the nature of language that is not a transparent medium for him, but something that offers resistance when we communicate with others, as well as something that may be flexible and adjusted to our will. By manipulating language Carroll shows in what way philosophy balances between sense and nonsense and how often philosophical questions arise from erroneous use of language and erroneous posing of problems. (shrink)

The author presents an intellectual profile of an Italian philosopher, Danilo Zolo, one of the most interesting thinkers on the contemporary philosophical scene. In his works, Zolo submits an analysis of the contemporary world. The paramount objective he pursues, however, is an attempt at answering questions from the domain of the philosophy of law and the philosophy of politics, including, primarily, the philosophy of global politics. The issues he subjects to scrutiny include the universal character of human rights, the equality (...) of individuals and societies and the sovereignty of states in the era of globalisation, the issue of a choice of a concept of justice, and a definition of the concept of war and terrorism as seen against the background of global structures and the events of recent decades. (shrink)

The author analyses ways of employment of computers in mathematics. In particular, the role of computers in the theory of fractals is considered. The author advocates the view that use of computers do not change character of mathematics - which is a deductive, not experimental science.

Pojęcia były zawsze jednym z najważniejszych obiektów badań filozoficznych. Szczególnie duży wkład do teorii analizy pojęć wnieśli przedstawiciele polskiej gałęzi XX-wiecznej filozofii analitycznej, czyli Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej. Badaniom filozoficznym w tej szkole przyświecał postulat jasności myślenia i mowy. Analiza i doskonalenie pojęć oraz języka filozoficznego jako ich nośnika były naturalnym wyrazem programu metodologicznego, jaki formacji tej nadał jej założyciel, Kazimierz Twardowski. W artykule przedstawiona jest procedura rekonstrukcji pojęć, stosowana powszechnie w szkole Twardowskiego. Okazuje się, że pomimo głębokich niekiedy różnic między poszczególnymi (...) przedstawicielami SLW da się wskazać pewne rysy wspólne prowadzonych w szkole badań nad pojęciami. Są to przede wszystkim moment kategorialny i moment konstrukcyjny, ze względu na który całą procedurę najlepiej określić właśnie jako „rekonstrukcję”. Bliżej zostały omówione dwa przykłady rekonstrukcji pojęć: praca Jana Łukasiewicza dotycząca pojęcia przyczyny oraz wyniki Alfreda Tarskiego dotyczące pojęcia prawdy. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the activities of the non-governmental organization ‘Memorial’ that are aimed at building historical memory and developing civic awareness of state terror and crimes committed by the communist regime. ‘Memorial’ also aims to show the politics of memory pursued by the Russian authorities after the collapse of the Soviet Union.