Nurses frequently encounter situations in which they are compelled to make ethical decisions about what is good and right to do in their day-to-day practice. Often existing moral edicts prove to be inadequate in light of the patient's particular circumstances. To what, then, can the nurse turn? In response to this question, Gadow (1999) proposes a dialectical framework comprised of three ethical approaches: subjective immersion (ethical immediacy), objective detachment (ethical universalism), and intersubjective engagement (relational narrative). In this paper, the dialectic (...) framework proposed by Gadow (1999) is examined with respect to some of its potential implications for nursing practice and education. This endeavour is undertaken in the spirit of extending the dialogue that Gadow has so eloquently initiated. Questions related to whether it is possible (or necessary) to reconcile the contradictory tenets of these ethical approaches or the potential disjunction between the knowledge embedded in the relational narrative and ensuing action on the part of the nurse are discussed. In addition, some of the potential implications of this dialectical framework for nurse education are explored, including the question of how nurses learn to enter into a relational narrative with another and the relevance of relational narratives to teacher–student relationships. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of a social desirability response bias as a personality characteristic (self-deception and impression management) and as an item characteristic (perceived desirability of the behavior) on self-reported ethical conduct. Findings from a sample of college students revealed that self-reported ethical conduct is associated with both personality and item characteristics, with perceived desirability of behavior having the greatest influence on self-reported conduct. Implications for research in business ethics are drawn, and suggestions are offered for reducing the effects (...) of a socially desirable response bias. (shrink)

In _Plato's_ Timaeus _and the Missing Fourth Guest_, Donna M. Altimari Adler offers an original account of Plato's Timaeus from 35a-36d, yielding a new interpretation of the _Timaeus_ scale and cosmic harmony imbedded in the text.

The study assesses how a social desirability (SD) bias influences the relationship between several independent and dependent variables commonly investigated in ethics research. The effect of a SD bias was observed when a questionnaire was administered under varying conditions of anonymity and with different measurement techniques for the SD construct. Findings reveal that a SD bias is present in the majority of relationships studied, and it most frequently plays a moderating role. While the measure of SD influences the strength and (...) type of relationship, condition of anonymity has relatively little effect on the level of SD. (shrink)

With a unique blend of clinical compassion and philosophical reflection, Donna M. Orange illuminates the nature and process of psychoanalytic understanding within the intimate and healing human context of treatment. Moving away from objectivist empiricism and its polar opposite, constructivist relativism, her work details a paradigm shift to a perspectival realism that does justice to the concerns of both. Laying the groundwork for a fuller, more encompassing view of psychoanalytic practice, Emotional Understanding is enlightening reading for all mental health (...) professionals interested in psychodynamic theory and treatment. (shrink)

For every uncountable regular cardinalκ and any cardinalλ≧κ,P κ λ denotes the set $\left\{ {x \subseteqq \lambda :\left| x \right|< \kappa } \right\}$ . Furthermore, < denotes the binary operation defined inP κ λ byx (...) + denotes the setP κ λ−I, andI * the filter dual toI.An idealI overP κ λ is said to benormal iff every functionf:P κ λ→λ with the property that {x∈P κ λ:f(x)∈x}∈I + is constant on a set inI +.I is said to bestrongly normal iff every functionf:P κ λ→P κ λ with the property that {x∈P κ λ:x∩xκ≠Ø∧f(x)shrink)

Psychoanalysis engages with the difficult subjects in life, but it has been slow to address climate change. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics draws on the latest scientific evidence to set out the likely effects of climate change on politics, economics and society more generally, including impacts on psychoanalysts. Despite a tendency to avoid the warnings, times of crisis summon clinicians to emerge from comfortable consulting rooms. Daily engaged with human suffering, they now face the inextricably bound together crises of (...) global warming and massive social injustices. After considering historical and emotional causes of climate unconsciousness and of compulsive consumerism, this book argues that only a radical ethics of responsibility to be "my other s keeper" will truly wake us up to climate change and bring psychoanalysts to actively take on responsibilities, such as demanding change from governments, living more simply, flying less, and caring for the earth and its inhabitants everywhere. Linking climate justice to radical ethics by way of psychoanalysis, Donna Orange explores many relevant aspects of psychoanalytic expertise, referring to work on trauma, mourning, and the transformation of trouble into purpose. Orange makes practical suggestions for action in the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic communities: reducing air travel, consolidating organizations and conferences, better use of internet communication and education. This book includes both philosophical considerations of egoism as problematic, together with work on shame and envy as motivating compulsive and conspicuous consumption. The interweaving of climate emergency and massive social injustice presents psychoanalysts and organized psychoanalysis with a radical ethical demand and an extraordinary opportunity for leadership. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics will provide accessible and thought-provoking reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as philosophers, environmental studies scholars and students studying across these fields. ". (shrink)

It is generally agreed that Parmenides’ fragment B3 posits some type of relation between “thinking” and “Being.” I critically examine the modern interpretations of this relation. Beginning with the ancient sources and proceeding into modern times, I try to show that the modern rationalist reading of fragment B3 conflicts with its grammatical syntax and the context of the poem as a whole. In my critique, I suggest that rather than a statement about epistemological relations, it is, as it was originally (...) understood, a religious assertion of metaphysical identity. (shrink)

_Thinking for Clinicians_ provides analysts of all orientations with the tools and context for working critically within psychoanalytic theory and practice. It does this through detailed chapters on some of the philosophers whose work is especially relevant for contemporary theory and clinical writing: Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Orange presents the historical background for their ideas, along with clinical vignettes to help contextualize their theories, further grounding them in real-world experience. With a hermeneutic sensibility (...) firmly in mind, _Thinking for Clinicians_ rewards as it challenges and will be a valuable reference for clinicians who seek a better understanding of the philosophical bases of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. (shrink)

Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in Psychoanalysis, demonstrates the demanding, clinical and humanitarian work that psychotherapists often undertake with fragile and devastated people, those degraded by violence and discrimination. In spite of this, Donna M. Orange argues that there is more to human nature than a relentlessly negative view. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical resources, as well as stories from history and literature, she explores ethical narratives that ground hope in human goodness and (...) shows how these voices, personal to each analyst, can become sources of courage, warning and support, of prophetic challenge and humility which can inform and guide their work. Over the course of a lifetime, the sources change, with new ones emerging into importance, others receding into the background. Donna Orange uses examples from ancient Rome, from twentieth century Europe, from South Africa, and from nineteenth century Russia. She shows how not only can their words and examples, like those of our personal mentors, inspire and warn us; but they also show us the daily discipline of spiritual self-care, although these examples rely heavily on the discipline of spiritual reading, other practitioners will find inspiration in music, visual arts, or elsewhere and replenish the resources regularly. Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians will help psychoanalysts to develop a language with which to converse about ethics and the responsibility of the therapist/analyst. This is an exceptional contribution highly suitable for practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Donna M. Orange teaches, consults, and offers study groups for psychoanalysts and gestalt therapists. She seeks to integrate contemporary psychoanalysis with radically relational ethics. Recent books are _Thinking for Clinicians: Philosophical Resources for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Humanistic Psychotherapies _, and _The Suffering Stranger: Hermeneutics for Everyday Clinical Practice_, both from Routledge. (shrink)

What is hermeneutics? -- The suffering stranger and the hermeneutics of trust -- Sandor Ferenczi : the analyst of last resort and the hermeneutics of trauma -- Frieda Fromm-Reichmann : incommunicable loneliness -- D.W. Winnicott : humanitarian without sentimentality -- Heinz Kohut : glimpsing the hidden suffering -- Bernard Brandchaft : liberating the incarcerated spirit.

Saul Kripke recently has published an interpretation of the later Wittgenstein's rule-following problem as a "sceptical paradox," the conclusion of which is that language is impossible. In this dissertation, I document the history of the rule-following problem in Wittgenstein's writings, thereby providing a historical perspective not provided by Kripke. In chapters I and II, I develop a broadly Kantian interpretation of the epistemology of the Tractatus. My interpretation conflicts both with interpretations according to which the Tractatus implicitly embodies an empiricist (...) epistemology or no epistemology at all and with idealist readings. In chapter III, I extend the comparison between Wittgenstein and Kant, arguing that there is an important sense in which the notion of thought is fundamental in the Tractatus. My interpretation conflicts with interpretations according to which the Tractarian theory of meaning requires a mental act of "dubbing" which correlates signs and objects as well as with interpretations according to which nothing mental is presupposed. On one hand, chapters I-III can be read independently of chapters IV and V as an interpretation of some aspects of the Tractatus. On the other hand, these chapters lay the groundwork for my argument in chapter IV that the rule-following problem in the Philosophical Investigations is a general and forceful restatement of the problem of an infinite regress of interpretations to which the Tractarian theory of meaning was supposed to provide a solution. For various reasons, which I recount, Wittgenstein became dissatisfied with his early answer, and the problem reappears in his later work. Finally, in chapter V, I present and evaluate Kripke's interpretation of the rule-following problem from the historical perspective developed in the preceding chapters. I suggest that Kripke fails to see that it is a carry-over of a problem with which Wittgenstein wrestled in the Tractatus. In addition, although he recognizes that the later Wittgenstein believes that no fact or process could account for our ability to represent the world, he does not show clearly why Wittgenstein believes that this is so. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that misperceptions and illusory experiences can occur if sensory stimulation is withdrawn or becomes invariant even for short periods of time. Using a perceptual deprivation paradigm, we created a monotonous audiovisual environment and asked participants to verbally report any auditory, visual or body-related phenomena they experienced. The data (analysed using a variant of interpretative phenomenological analysis) revealed two main themes: (1) reported sensory phenomena have different spatial characteristics ranging from simple percepts to the feeling of immersion (...) in a complex multisensory environment and (2) the active contribution of the perceiver where participants report engaging in exploratory processes even when there is nothing to find. Detailed analysis of the qualitative data further showed that participants who reported more perceptual phenomena were more likely to report internal bodily sensations, move more during the experiment and score higher on the Revised Hallucination Scale than those reporting fewer percepts explicitly linking perceptual deprivation to somatic phenomena. The results demonstrate how the variety of sensory experiences induced by perceptual deprivation can give further insight into the factors mediating conscious awareness and may suggest ways in which the brain imposes meaning on the environment under invariant sensory conditions. (shrink)

In Buddhism the idea of a transcendental or eternal self is denied as non-substantial and impermanent: a non-verifiable metaphysical entity that leads to grasping, craving and suffering. Buddhism posits that things continually change, are continually reducible and recyclable, and that no inherent existence or metaphysical “self” exists but rather a series of aggregates give rise to the experience so that consciousness itself is causally conditioned. As applied to the notion of no- self the one who is reborn and the one (...) who dies and the one who follows the path and the one who realizes enlightenment are neither the same nor different selves. With the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence an analysis of the notion of the “self” breaks down into layers to discover that the self does not exist independently at all. Because of simultaneous arising and falling of each moment the self exists as essentially empty. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that Parmenides’ fragment B3 posits some type of relation between “thinking” and “Being.” I critically examine the modern interpretations of this relation. Beginning with the ancient sources and proceeding into modern times, I try to show that the modern rationalist reading of fragment B3 conflicts with its grammatical syntax and the context of the poem as a whole. In my critique, I suggest that rather than a statement about epistemological relations, it is, as it was originally (...) understood, a religious assertion of metaphysical identity. (shrink)