This study examines the representation of male and female musicians in world-class symphony orchestras. Personnel of 40 orchestras of three regions, UK, Europe and the USA and distributions of men and women across the four orchestral departments: strings, woodwind, brass and percussion are compared. Significant differences in representation between orchestras of the three regions are reported. Practices adopted by orchestras when appointing musicians to vacant positions are reviewed and numbers of males and females appointed to rank-and-file and Section Principals are (...) compared. Career patterns of male and female musicians are also compared. Increases in numbers of women appointed to orchestral posts in the last three decades are compared with increases in the proportion of women in the general workforce. The data of orchestral membership are then compared with the numbers of young people receiving tuition on orchestral instruments retrieved from a large national database (n = 391,000 students). Implications for the future of male and female representation in orchestral personnel are then considered. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

William Desmond: It is a pleasure to welcome Professor Charles Griswold today. I thank him for his willingness to present us with an overview of his new book Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment , and to participate in a discussion. Professor Griswold is professor of philosophy at Boston University, where he is also the chair of the philosophy department. His new work on Adam Smith might seem like something of a departure from the concerns of many (...) of his prior publications. In particular I mean his writings on Plato and Platonic themes generally. I refer especially to his book Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus, first published by Yale University Press, and recently reprinted by Pennsylvania State University Press.This book is a close reading and interpretation of the Phaedrus, and was awarded the Matchette prize by the American Philosophical Association in 1987. Needless to say, Professor Griswold has written extensively on classical philosophy. This, however, cannot be separated from a concern with pressing problems of more contemporary currency, especially the role of philosophy in society, and with respect to ethical and political considerations. Hence his concern with the moderns, by contrast with the ancients, implies no slighting of the former, though the question persists as to what both have to say to us today. So it is not surprising to find him engaged with a very influential modern, Adam Smith: an influential, but also complex modern, in that themes from ancient thought receive their own distinctive configuration in Smith's thought.Enlightenment is often marked by a certain turn from the past, oriented to a putatively better future, via a reformed or revolutionized present. But the contrast with the past is sometimes less stark. This one might guess perhaps from the subtitle to the book, emphasizing the virtues of enlightenment. While Smith now is often remembered first as an economist, Professor Griswold's interest is directed to his work as a philosopher, especially his moral and political thought. Many of the themes that Adam Smith explored, and to which Griswold draws our attention, are still very live issues: the virtues, ethical reasoning, sympathy, moral education, the importance of ordinary life and the role of philosophical theory, to name but a few issues.Let me then welcome Charles again, and ask him to first offer us an account of his new work, its purposes and its claims. After that we will begin the discussion with the other participants here. (shrink)

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor, faced with contemporary challenges to belief in God, issues a call for "new and unprecedented itineraries" that might be capable of leading seekers to encounter God. In Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age, Ryan G. Duns demonstrates that William Desmond's philosophy has the resources to offer a compelling response to Taylor. To show how, Duns makes use of the work of Pierre Hadot. In Hadot's view, the point of philosophy is "not to (...) inform but to form"--That is, not to provide abstract answers to abstruse questions but rather to form the human being such that she can approach reality as such in a new way. Drawing on Hadot, Duns frames Desmond's metaphysical thought as a form of spiritual exercise. So framed, Duns argues, Desmond's metaphysics attunes its readers to perceive disclosure of the divine in the everyday. In this way, Desmond's metaphysics is not about conjuring a different reality but instead leads readers to behold reality itself in a different way by helping them to encounter the presence of God, who abides in, and is disclosed through, all things in the world. Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age offers a readable and engaging introduction to the thought of Charles Taylor and William Desmond, and demonstrates how practicing metaphysics can be understood as a form of spiritual exercise that renews in its practitioners attentiveness to God in all things"-- Back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 639-658 [Access article in PDF] "The whole exercise of reason":Charles Mein's Account of Rationality James G. Buickerood L'Auteur de cet Ouvrage nous paroit meriter un rang distingué parmi les Auteurs Metaphysiques. Il seroit seulement à souhaiter qu'il eût traité ses matiéres avec un peu plus de Methode. Ce n'est pas qu'il ne soit très-intelligible, & que son Stile même ne (...) soit assez pur, mais un Auteur devroit se souvenir que ceux qui liront son ouvrage ne suivront pas ses pensées comme il les suit, & qu'on ne se rapellera pas ce qu'il a dit aussi facilement qu'il se le rapelle lui-même.... Il nous paroit que si l'Auteur veut encore s'exercer sur pareilles matieres il ne fera pas mal de repasser sur ce qui'il vient de publier, de donner des definitions plus intelligibles, & d'éclaircir le reste avec plus d'exactitude. — Bibliothèque raisonnée, June 1729 Two Dissertations concerning Sense, and the Imagination. With an Essay on Consciousness appeared anonymously in mid-summer 1728 over the prestigious imprint of Tonson in the Strand. 1 The "Essay on Consciousness" explicates the nature and functions of consciousness. The two dissertations modestly prepare for an inquiry into human understanding, which [End Page 639] is at present very much wanted; and towards which the removal of those Prejudices arising from Sense, and the Imagination, which hinder Men from discovering the Truth, or discerning it, tho' fairly offered to them, is the first Step to be made; and may be of some use to any one who shall hereafter undertake to explain and set forth, in a clear and perspicuous Light, the native and genuine Operations of the Understanding, as they are in Themselves, without mixing or confounding them with any Others. (1-2) A Bibliothèque raisonnée review twice noted the book's diffusion and inconvenient organization. 2 The book is nonetheless interesting for its clear defense of the cognitive superiority of reason over sense and imagination, its attack on contemporary conflations of human and brutal natures, and its treatment of consciousness, dreams, madness, and the self. In its assay of human understanding Two Dissertations implements Peripatetic, Cartesian, and even Lockean principles. The last notwithstanding, the work is an assault on the Lockean reduction of understanding to passive perception and on Locke's conception of knowledge as the perception of ideas and their relations. It is also an attempt to resuscitate reason in the teeth of nominalist accounts of rationality such as those of John Toland and allied freethinkers. 3 In pursuing these goals, it offers variations on traditional concepts of cognition, such as a conception of notions as acts of intellectual apprehension which an interpreting mind brings to bear on sensory appearances. This understanding of notions as acts falls within the British notional way marked by Digby, White, Sergeant, and especially Burthogge, antedating publication of George Berkeley's explicit distinction between passive ideas and notions owing to reflection. 4 Notions play an important role in Two Dissertations, contrasting the mind's active, rational contribution to knowledge with Lockean ideas. Yet the work's treatment of notions contains intimations of a more elaborate conception of rationality that includes a distinct order of reflective notions not deployed in this book (25-26).Clearly identifying the purposes, doctrine, and authorship of Two Dissertations is worthwhile insofar as its detailed analysis of consciousness is intrinsically interesting and quite possibly historically important, despite its neglect in the past century. For its "Essay on Consciousness" purports to be the "first Attempt that hath been made on the Subject" (sig. A3r ; cf. 141-42). While conventional [End Page 640] interpretations of modern philosophy may have habituated us to be skeptical of such a claim made as late as 1728, it is by no means outlandish, subject to textual and conceptual qualification. This paper concerns primarily just one function of the conscious mind addressed in Two Dissertations: the concept of... (shrink)

Algunos aspectos de La expresión de las emociones de Charles Darwin pueden resultar intrigantes, pues, en la explicación de cómo tales expresiones se originan, Darwin casi nunca apela a la selección natural. En cambio, apela principalmente a la idea de que movimientos voluntarios se asocian a emociones, volviéndose por hábito innatos e involuntarios al heredarse a la descendencia. Si bien Darwin da varias razones para defender esta explicación, en este trabajo trataré de mostrar que, si se entiende el libro (...) sobre las expresiones en relación con los objetivos explícitos e implícitos de El origen del hombre, el asunto se entiende mejor. En particular, resulta interesante la tesis que Desmond y Moore plantean respecto a la importancia de los ideales antiesclavistas de Darwin a la hora del tratamiento de las razas. Defenderé en este trabajo que el enfoque de Desmond y Moore puede extenderse al libro acerca de las expresiones. Específicamente, estableceré vínculos entre la explicación del origen de las razas y la explicación del origen del rubor. Palabras clave: Charles Darwin, La expresión de las emociones, El origen del hombre, Rubor, Antiesclavismo. (shrink)

In this smart and timely book, the distinguished moral philosopher Sissela Bok ponders the nature of happiness and its place in philosophical thinking and writing throughout the ages. With nuance and elegance, Bok explores notions of happiness—from Greek philosophers to Desmond Tutu, Charles Darwin, Iris Murdoch, and the Dalai Lama—as well as the latest theories advanced by psychologists, economists, geneticists, and neuroscientists. Eschewing abstract theorizing, Bok weaves in a wealth of firsthand observations about happiness from ordinary people as (...) well as renowned figures. This may well be the most complete picture of happiness yet. This book is also a clarion call to think clearly and sensitively about happiness. Bringing together very different disciplines provides Bok with a unique opportunity to consider the role of happiness in wider questions of how we should lead our lives and treat one another—concerns that don’t often figure in today’s happiness equation. How should we pursue, weigh, value, or limit our own happiness, or that of others, now and in the future? Compelling and perceptive, _Exploring Happiness_ shines a welcome new light on the heart of the human condition. (shrink)

Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. However, combining information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from the different senses gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space. This volume brings together the leading researchers from a broad range of scientific approaches (...) to present the first overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

In this smart and timely book, the distinguished moral philosopher Sissela Bok ponders the nature of happiness and its place in philosophical thinking and writing throughout the ages. With nuance and elegance, Bok explores notions of happiness—from Greek philosophers to Desmond Tutu, Charles Darwin, Iris Murdoch, and the Dalai Lama—as well as the latest theories advanced by psychologists, economists, geneticists, and neuroscientists. Eschewing abstract theorizing, Bok weaves in a wealth of firsthand observations about happiness from ordinary people as (...) well as renowned figures. This may well be the most complete picture of happiness yet. This book is also a clarion call to think clearly and sensitively about happiness. Bringing together very different disciplines provides Bok with a unique opportunity to consider the role of happiness in wider questions of how we should lead our lives and treat one another—concerns that don’t often figure in today’s happiness equation. How should we pursue, weigh, value, or limit our own happiness, or that of others, now and in the future? Compelling and perceptive, _Exploring Happiness_ shines a welcome new light on the heart of the human condition. (shrink)

The volumes in the Clarendon Aristotle Series seek to meet the needs of philosophically inclined readers who do not know Greek by providing accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts accompanied by philosophical commentaries. To these ends, Trevor Saunders’s welcome addition to the series, a treatment of the first two books of Aristotle’s Politics, provides a number of useful tools. First there is a new translation of books I and II. Saunders numbers the paragraphs of the translation and the corresponding sections (...) of the commentary to facilitate reference to the text and commentary within the discussion of each chapter, though not across chapters. Saunders provides Greek-English and English-Greek glossaries. These will be especially useful to Greek-less readers, because Saunders is often traditional in his translation of key terms and thus, for example, obscures connections that have to be made explicit. So, for example, Saunders follows the very common practice of rendering the cognates polis, politês, and politeia as ‘state’, ‘citizen’, and ‘constitution’, respectively. Each section of the commentary begins with an introduction and proceeds to discuss each paragraph in turn, often including several recommendations for where to go next in the secondary literature. The book also has a guide to the translation and commentary, a brief but helpful introduction, a short appendix on the alleged oligarchic bias in Plato’s Laws, a list of departures from Ross’s Oxford Classical Text, a bibliography of works cited, and a selective index. Sadly, but in company with most of its companions in the Clarendon Aristotle Series, it lacks an index locorum. (shrink)

Non-factive representing is what makes room for truth and falsehood. In the ontologically central aspect of the verb it comes in two forms: allorepresenting (saying-that), and autorepresenting (taking-that). Each form relates thinkers to thinkables in its proprietary way. Autorepresenting invites a certain sort of misunderstanding. It may seem to call for enabling in a particular determinate way. Just here psychologism despite oneself may strike. Allorepresenting rests on capacities of a different sort. It relates itself, and thereby its author, to a (...) thinkable in what seems at first sight a manifestly different way than does autrorepresenting, one perhaps less likely to invite psychologism. In doing this it throws light on autorepresenting which, if rightly understood, I suggest, may undo the compulsion to psychologise this last. Armed with this tool I suggest a better picture of what autorepresenting is. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic touched off an unprecedented search for vaccines and treatments. Without question, the development of vaccines to prevent COVID-19 was an enormous scientific accomplishment. Further, the RECOVERY and Solidarity trials identified effective treatments for COVID-19. But all was not success. The urgent need for COVID-19 prevention and treatment fueled an embrace of risks—to research participants and to the reliability of the science itself—as allegedly necessary costs to speed scientific progress. Scientists and (even) ethicists supported overturning longstanding norms protecting (...) healthy volunteers in human challenge trials to speed vaccine development, but these trials led to no vaccines. Physicians, with the approval of research ethics committees, designed hundreds of unblinded, single-center clinical trials at high risk of bias to speed the identification of new treatments. But these clinical trials led to no treatments. The lesson for future pandemics is that the acceptance of greater risks to participants or science does not reliably lead to progress. We are better served by science that upholds the highest ethical and methodological standards. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson has broken (...) chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson has broken (...) chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Charles Taylor; X*—The Validity of Transcendental Arguments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 151–166, https://do.

Charles Parsons; X*—Mathematical Intuition, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 80, Issue 1, 1 June 1980, Pages 145–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/ari.

Is blue food desirable or disgusting? The answer, it would seem, is both, but it really depends on the food in which the color happens to be present. It turns out that the oft-cited aversive response to blue meat may not even have been scientifically validated, despite the fact that blue food coloring is often added to discombobulate diners. In the case of drinks, however, there has been a recent growth of successful new blue product launches in everything from beer (...) to tea, and from wine to gin, arguing that coloring food products blue is more than simply a contemporary fad. In fact, the current interest in blue food coloring builds on the color's earlier appearance in everything from blue curacao to blue-raspberry candyfloss, and thereafter a number of soft drinks. Over the years, the combination of blue coloring with raspberry flavoring has also appeared in everything from bubble-gum to patriotic pop rocks. Ultimately, it is the rarity of naturally-blue foods that is likely what makes this color so special. As such, blue food coloring can both work effectively to attract the visual attention of the shopper while, at the same time, being linked to a range of different flavors depending on the food format in which it happens to appear. Note also that the basic descriptor “blue” covers a wide range of hues having a range of different associations, hence eliciting different reactions. While blue was once associated with artificiality, a growing number of natural blue food colorings have come onto the market in recent years thus perhaps changing the dominant associations that many consumers may have with this most unusual of food colors. (shrink)

In this essay I focus on two areas discussed in Michael Brady’s Emotion: The Basics, namely perceptual models of emotion and the relation between emotion and virtue. Brady raises two concerns about perceptual theories: that they arguably collapse into feeling or cognitive theories of emotion; and that the analogy between emotion and perception is questionable at best, and is thus not an adequate way of characterizing emotion. I argue that a close look at perception and emotional experience reveals a structure (...) of emotion that avoids these problems. I then explore other ways in which emotions can be operative in virtuous acts and virtue traits outside of their relation to motivation. The patterns of emotional response that we have can affect virtue because they affect the way in which we see and take-in information about the world, and the gravity that such perceptions have for us. In addition, emotions are critical to virtue because they maintain the level of importance that values have for us, and in doing so forestall axiological entropy, namely the fading of the importance that values have for us, and thus the virtues that are dependent on those values. (shrink)

Introduction Comparative psychology can generally be defined as the branch of psychology that studies the similarities and differences in the behavior of organisms. Formal definitions found in textbooks and encyclopedias disagree whether comparative psychologists restrict their work to the study of animals or include the study of human behavior. This paper offers an opinion on the major problem facing comparative psychology today – where we will find the next generation of comparative psychology students. Something must be done before we lose (...) access to an entire generation of psychology undergraduates. It is not enough to say that comparative psychology is being “absorbed” in other academic units such as “integrative biology”, “integrative study of animal behavior”, “evolutionary psychology”, “comparative cognition”, or “animal cognition.” Indeed, many of these topics are not primarily studied in psychology departments, wherein comparative psychology students have traditionally received joint training in the principles of behavior and comparative analysis, as applied to both humans and other animals. Consider, for example, the difference between comparative psychology and comparative cognition. Comparative cognition includes features of comparative psychology, but they are not identical. Comparative cognition represents a very specific theoretical position whose validity is based on certain suppositions such as the belief (by definition) that the internal cogni... (shrink)

What if you were to discover that you were only one half of a whole—that you had a divine double? In the second and third centuries CE, Charles Stang shows, this idea gripped the religious imagination of the Eastern Mediterranean, offering a distinctive understanding of the self that has survived in various forms down to the present.

Although it provides a useful description of elementary movement trajectories, we argue that the delta-lognormal model is deficient as an account of speed/accuracy tradeoffs in aimed movements. It fails in this regard because (1) it is deterministic, (2) its formulation ignores critical task elements, and (3) it fails to account for the corrective role of submovements.

Tryptophan synthetase was initially selected as a subject for investigation of the relationship between gene structure and protein structure. Early studies with this enzyme first demonstrated the existence in mutants of immunologically cross‐reacting material (CRM) and the restoration of a wild‐type enzyme by genetic suppression. Fine structure analyses with E. coli tryptophan synthetase missense mutants proved the colinearity of gene structure and catalytic capabilities of this enzyme have been subjects for numerous studies.

Plato's striking figure of the ‘child in us’ at Phaedo 77e5 takes on an added lustre when viewed in the light of the theory of explanation Socrates develops between lOObl and 105c7. Socrates' theory aims to explain why certain objects have certain properties: why something is beautiful or tall, or when a body will be sick or alive. Explanation is called for, Socrates thinks, when an object has a property its title to which is insecure, in the sense that the (...) object's having the property is not guaranteed by its being what it is. Thus Socrates wants an explanation, for example, of a person's being tall or – the case of especial interest in the Phaedo – of a body's being alive. (shrink)