In the conclusion to this multi-part article I first review the discussions carried out around the six essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis – the position taken by Allen Frances on each question, the commentaries on the respective question along with Frances’ responses to the commentaries, and my own view of the multiple discussions. In this review I emphasize that the core question is the first – what is the nature of psychiatric illness – and that in some manner all further (...) questions follow from the first. Following this review I attempt to move the discussion forward, addressing the first question from the perspectives of natural kind analysis and complexity analysis. This reflection leads toward a view of psychiatric disorders – and future nosologies – as far more complex and uncertain than we have imagined. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article will take up the first two questions. With the first question, invited commentators express a range of opinion regarding the nature of psychiatric disorders, loosely divided into a realist position that the diagnostic categories represent real diseases that we can accurately name and know with our perceptual abilities, a middle, nominalist position that psychiatric disorders do exist in the real world but that our diagnostic categories are constructs that may or may not accurately represent the disorders out there, and finally a purely constructivist position that the diagnostic categories are simply constructs with no evidence of psychiatric disorders in the real world. The second question again offers a range of opinion as to how we should define a mental or psychiatric disorder, including the possibility that we should not try to formulate a definition. The general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

This article provides ethical guidance on using race in health research as a variable or in defining the study population. To this end, a plain, non-exhaustive checklist is provided for researchers and research ethics committees, preceded by a brief introduction on the need for justification when using race as a variable or in defining a study population, the problem of exoticism, that distinctions pertain between race, ethnicity and ancestry, the problematic naming of races, and that race does not serve well (...) as a presumed biological construct in genetic research. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM – whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part 1 of this article took up the first two questions. Part 2 took up the second two questions. Part 3 now deals with Questions 5 & 6. Question 5 confronts the issue of utility, whether the manual design of DSM-III and IV favors clinicians or researchers, and what that means for DSM-5. Our final question, Question 6, takes up a concluding issue, whether the acknowledged problems with the earlier DSMs warrants a significant overhaul of DSM-5 and future manuals. As in Parts 1 & 2 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

With an new foreword by James Warren Long renowned as one of the clearest and best introductions to ancient Greek philosophy for non-specialists, W.K.C Guthrie s The Greek Philosophers offers us a brilliant insight into the hidden foundations of Greek philosophy foundations that underpin Western thought today. Guthrie explores the great age of Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aristotle whilst combining comprehensiveness with brevity. He unpacks the ideas and arguments of Plato and Aristotle in the light of their predecessors (...) rather than their successors and describes the characteristic features of the Greek way of thinking, emphasising what he calls the cultural soil of their ideas. He also highlights the achievements of thinkers such as Pythagoras, who in contemporary accounts of Greek philosophy are frequently overlooked. Combining philosophical insight and historical sensitivity, The Greek Philosophers offers newcomers a brilliant introduction to the greatest thinkers in ancient Greek philosophy and the very origins of Western thought. ". (shrink)

No doubt taking his clue from a book published by Friedrich Paulsen under the title Philosophia Militans, Albert C. Knudson placed a chapter in his memorable history of personalistic idealism called “Militant Personalism”. And he raised by that very title, as Paulsen had earlier, the question of the actual forcefulness of philosophical ideas on history and society. Another book, issued three years after Knudson’s, was called Behaviorism: A Battle Line. This volume of collected essays, edited by W. P. King, made (...) the point that behaviorism as a philosophy of mind had such serious negative implications for human beings and the social order that it must be vigorously opposed and literally fought against. (shrink)

Transpersonal psychology: Dean, S. R. The ultraconscious mind. Arasteh, A. R. Final integration in the adult personality.--The nature of madness: First, E. Visions, voyages, and new interpretations of madness. Van Dusen, W. Hallucinations as the world of spirits.--Biofeedback: White, J. The yogi in the lab. Kiefer, D. EEG alpha feedback and subjective states of consciousness.--Meditation research: Griffith, F. F. Meditation research: its personal and social implications. Kiefer, D. Intermeditation notes: reports from inner space.--Psychic research: Honorton, C. Tracing ESP through altered (...) states of consciousness. Johnson, C. W. Unexplored areas of parapsychology.--Paraphysics: White, J. Plants, polygraphs, and paraphysics. Reiser, O. L. Messages to and from the galaxy.--Biotechnology: Beal, J. B. The new biotechnology. Tiller, W. A. Energy fields and the human body.--The neurosciences: Conway, H. Life, death, and antimatter. Floyd, K. Of time and mind: from paradox to paradigm.--Ecological consciousness: Smith, R. A. Our passport to evolutionary awareness. Esser, A. H. Synergy and social pollution in the communal imagery of mankind.--Space travel and extraterrestrial life: Mitchell, E. D. Global consciousness and the view from space. White, J. Exobiology--where science fiction meets science fact.--Death as an altered state of consciousness: Tietze, T. R. Some perspectives on survival. Noyes, R. Dying and mystical consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Alcaics In Exile: W. H. Auden’s “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”Rosanna WarrenOn September 23, 1939, Sigmund Freud died in exile in London, a refugee from Nazi Austria. Within a month, Auden, who had been living in the United States since January of that year, wrote a friend in England that he was working on an elegy for Freud. 1 The poem appeared in The Kenyon Review early in 1940. (...) A stately public ode, the poem mourns not only the death of a publicly significant individual, but the collapse of a world. Hitler had overrun Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland; assaults on Jews had intensified; England and France had just declared war on Germany. There would be, indeed, many who would have to be mourned:When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and anguish,of whom shall we speak?...Someone encountering this poem for the first time, on the page or in the ear, might be pardoned for puzzling over its form. It sounds prosy. It seems to have some recognizable English cadences, pentameters (“[inline-graphic 01]”), tetrameters (“ ”), and even trimeters (“ ”). But the pattern seems unruly, with some [End Page 111] lines stretching out beyond five traditional beats, and ignoring any iambic order: “turned elsewhere with their disappointment as he.” Groping for a more satisfactory principle of organization, a reader with some knowledge of versification may be moved to count syllables. Such a reader will discover that the poem is indeed organized syllabically in lines of 11, 11, 9, and 10 syllables. “Aha,” says the reader, alert to Auden’s intimacy with Classical civilization: “A Horatian ode. Not inappropriate for a formal elegy.” Reflecting further, and leafing through the pages of Horace, that reader will find, or remember, that two thirds of Horace’s odes are in these quatrains, the alcaic stanza. Auden, it appears, has composed his elegy in some version of the meter of Alcaeus, the 7th century b.c.e. Greek poet whose stanza became second nature to Horace. And we cannot enter the world of Auden’s poem without asking, why alcaics? And how do they work here?“In Memory of Sigmund Freud” is sometimes said to be Auden’s first syllabic poem. 2 Others demur, proposing both earlier and later examples. 3 Whatever the spats about dating Auden’s early syllabic practice, scholars conventionally agree that his turn toward syllabic composition reflects his evolving interest in a discursive poetry; in the poet as a private intelligence with a public voice; and in the work, respectively, of Horace and Marianne Moore. Having identified the poem as syllabic, many critics move on to heftier topics like psychoanalysis versus Marxism, Auden more than most poets having laid himself open to an overridingly thematic criticism of Big Ideas. But if, having acknowledged the influence of Horace and Moore in Auden’s refusal of English iambic lyricism here, we stay with the question of meter, we are led back to the older progenitor, Alcaeus, a great poet of exile, whose stanza Auden adopts and adapts. I shall ask how it affects our reading to observe that the stanza itself has a genealogy, and brings its expressive burden to bear on Auden’s poem.“In Memory of Sigmund Freud” relies on a counterpoint of two metrical systems, the largely iambic accentual/syllabic system, traditional in English since Wyatt, and a flattened version of Greek quantitative meter, which was a musical notation of syllable length. For Auden, whose great prosodic facility was almost a handicap, the problem was, “not how to write in iambics but how not to write in them from automatic habit.” 4 Throughout his poetic life, he reached for cadences to interrupt the “natural” iambics, sometimes recalling the Old English alliterative beat, and often turning to ballads and popular tunes for rhythmical variation. By the late thirties, he was not only disillusioned [End Page 112] with the Spanish Civil War and his role as quasi-Socialist bard, but was seeking new compositional principles as well. Free verse was not an alternative: his ear required an evident... (shrink)

No doubt taking his clue from a book published by Friedrich Paulsen under the title Philosophia Militans, Albert C. Knudson placed a chapter in his memorable history of personalistic idealism called “Militant Personalism”. And he raised by that very title, as Paulsen had earlier, the question of the actual forcefulness of philosophical ideas on history and society. Another book, issued three years after Knudson’s, was called Behaviorism: A Battle Line. This volume of collected essays, edited by W. P. King, made (...) the point that behaviorism as a philosophy of mind had such serious negative implications for human beings and the social order that it must be vigorously opposed and literally fought against. (shrink)

The friendly expatriate ladies of the chorus in Helen enter having heard loud lamentation issuing from the palace, while engaged, like the Φλα of the chorus in Hippolytus 125ff., in spreading laundered crimson textiles to dry in the sun. The central theme of ‘hearing cries’, with the verb κλυον and nouns of utterance, is reminiscent also of Medea 131ff., where the opening words of the Parodos κλυον Φωνν, κλυον δ βον… allude to Medea's loud utterances сωθεν in 96ff. and 111ff. (...) : here, as there, the Parodos exploits the familiar motif of βοηδρομα. (shrink)

πνοϲ, in general a common word in Greek tragedy, is a cardinal theme in the Heracles. In the first half of the play the glorious saving Labours of the warrior Hero with his bow, club and other weaponry are retrospectively evoked and further enacted. Repeated emphasis on this kind of ‘noble toil’ accords with the heroic definition of ρετ, which traditionally βανει διμχθω–8 the first strophe of the long First Stasimon in honour of Heracles ends with: μνῆϲαι ϲτεφνωμα μ– χθων (...) δι' ελογαϲ θλω γενναων δ' ρετα πνων τοῖϲ θανοϲιν γαλμα. Heracles par excellence merits the title πολπονοϲ and for their individual greatness. πολυ- can mean either ‘much-’, so that it suffices for Amphitryon at 1190ff. to mention a single especially grand and godlike Labour: AM.μϲ μϲ δε γνοϲ πολπονοϲ, π δρυ γιγαντοφνον λθεν ϲν θεο- ϲι Φλεγραον ϲ πεδον ϲπιϲτϲ This we may call the ‘epic’ view of the hero and of the πνοι performed by him cw ϲν θεοϲ. πνοϲ is normally martial in the Iliad.4 Note also, however, that the terminal ϲπιϲτϲ adds an allusion to the kind of martial ρετ most admired by 5th-century Athenians. (shrink)

So begins one of the most engaging, and variously controversial, musical scenes in Euripides. The Messenger's narrative of the Phantom Helen's disappearance has proved to Menelaus that the Helen standing before him is the real Helen, altogether innocent of elopement to Troy, from whom he has been sundered for seventeen laborious years. The ensuing embrace is developed in a duet which is followed without a break by the so-called ‘Interrogation’, the two together constituting the so-called ‘Recognition Duo’.

The study of letters, by Norman Foerster.--Language, by J.C. McGalliard.--Literary history, by René Wellek.--Literary criticism, by Austin Warren.--Imaginative writing, by W.L. Schramm.--Notes.--Bibliography (p. 239-255).

A proof is given that there does not exist an event, that is not already in the past for some possible distant observer at the (our) moment that the latter is "now" for us. Such event is as "legally" past for that distant observer as is the moment five minutes ago on the sun for us (irrespective of the circumstance that the light of the sun cannot reach us in a period of five minutes). Only an extreme positivism: "that which (...) cannot yet be observed does not yet exist", can possibly withstand the conclusion concerned. Therefore, there is determinism, also in micro-physics. (shrink)

This volume, which is part of the Clarendon Aristotle Series, offers a clear and faithful new translation of Books II to IV of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, accompanied by an analytical commentary focusing on philosophical issues. In Books II to IV, Aristotle gives his account of virtue of character in general and of the principal virtues individually, topics of central interest both to his ethical theory and to modern ethical theorists. Consequently major themes of the commentary are connections on the one (...) hand with other relevant Aristotelian texts and on the other with modern writings, both text-related and thematic. Since the main aim of the volume is to make Aristotle's thought as accessible as possible to readers who do not know Greek, considerable care is taken to elucidate both his technical vocabulary and significant features of his Greek idiom. C. C. W. Taylor also provides systematic comparisons with other translations into English and other languages, and frequent references to other commentaries, ancient, medieval, and modern. These features make the work useful to other scholars in the field as well as to students of philosophy, both undergraduate and graduate.In view of the widespread contemporary interest in the topic of virtue, the volume should appeal to students of ethics and to any reader who is concerned to see how fundamental questions of life and conduct were approached in a culture significantly different from our own. (shrink)

This paper extends the discussion of guanxi beyond instrumental evaluations and advances a normative assessment of guanxi. Our discussion departs from previous analyses by not merely asking, Does guanxi work? but rather Should corporations use guanxi? The analysis begins with a review of traditional guanxi definitions and the changing economic and legal environment in China, both necessary precursors to understanding the role of guanxi in Chinese business transactions. This review leads us to suggest that there are distinct types of, and (...) uses for guanxi. We identify the potentially problematic aspects of certain forms of guanxi from a normative perspective, noting among other things, the close association of particular types of guanxi with corruption and bribery. We conclude that there are many different forms of guanxi that may have distinct impacts on economic efficiency and the well-being of ordinary Chinese citizens. Consistent with Donaldson and Dunfee (1999), we advocate a particularistic analysis of the different forms of guanxi. (shrink)

Originally published in 1913, this text was written in anticipation of the King's Speech for that year, which was due to include a Bill for the development of a National System of Education. The text puts forward the view that 'unless the Bill succeeds in making the most of the movement for reform springing from the schools themselves, it can but grant opportunities which will be incompletely utilised'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the (...) history of education and educational reform. (shrink)

Quantum theory predicts that, e.g., in a Stern-Gerlach experiment with electrons the measured spin component $S_Z = \pm \frac{1}{2}$ does not come about by an adjustment at the last moment, a forced “flipping” or “tilting” of the spin (vector), which would imply z-angular momentum exchange between particle and instrument, but will afterward appear to have had the value $\frac{1}{2} or - \frac{1}{2}$ already before the measurement. Because an electron spin cannot have components $ \pm \frac{1}{2}$ in all directions at the (...) same time, the measuring direction has a “privileged” status before the measurement, however we choose that direction, which implies a retroactive effect. A second proof of retroactivity is derived from a special case of the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. It is strongly suggested by our result that, in essential respects, both Bohr and Einstein were right in their famous controversy about determinism and considering microprocesses “as a whole.”. (shrink)