In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 159-160 [Access article in PDF] The Nine Lives of the Dynamic Unconscious Jerome Kroll IN THEIR PROVOCATIVE ARTICLE "Dispensing with the Dynamic Unconscious," O'Brien and Jureidini offer two basic arguments against the existence or, more accurately, because we are dealing here with constructs, the plausibility, of the dynamic unconscious. First, they assert, in contradistinction to the psychoanalytic claim that evidence of (...) a cognitive unconscious supports the claim for a dynamic unconscious, that the notion of a cognitive unconscious is incompatible with that of a dynamic unconscious. Second, they argue on the grounds of parsimony that the phenomena explained by a dynamic unconscious can be better explained (accounted for) by other mechanisms.I would argue that neither of their contentions is correct. O'Brien and Jureidini have essentially taken data and evidence from cognitive science, issued a new vocabulary, and then asserted that their vocabulary is superior and constitutes better explanations for the phenomena and observations under question. They have failed to show any incompatibility between the two explanatory constructs. O'Brien and Jureidini agree with the basic Freudian tenet that most mental activity is unconscious, that is, out of consciousness, and that much of what is out of consciousness can be brought into consciousness with proper cueing. No problem so far.The problem with the dynamic unconscious, as O'Brien and Jureidini see it, is that the cognitive unconscious is modular, best described as a series of subpersonal systems akin to a set of narrowly focused computational specialists, whereas the dynamic unconscious contains fully formed repressed memories. What O'Brien and Jureidini have now given us are multiple homunculi rather than just one CEO or executive homunculus. How literally do we want to take these subpersons? Are subpersonal mental states more satisfactory scientifically than personal-level mental states? Second, O'Brien and Jureidini unfairly attribute to the psychoanalytic position the claim that the dynamic unconscious "is presumed to contain fully formed repressed memories." With the compelling evidence from psychology and neuroscience that all memory is a reconstruction, I do not think that any contemporary psychodynamicist makes a case for fully formed repressed memories, nor is this notion essential to a theory of a dynamic unconscious. O'Brien and Jureidini invoke Occam's razor by invoking a straw horse argument. Their description of the action of subpersonal parts doing sufficient specific cuing sounds suspiciously like the work done in the dynamic unconscious. In the next section, an emotional response is described as pushing images out of mind before they can be reported on (assumedly, before they become conscious). What is doing the pushing here? Upon what principles or priorities are images pushed out of mind?The authors explain that mental "representations are inaccessible to consciousness by virtue [End Page 159] of architectural constraints rather than the operation of a repressive force." But architectural constraints sounds like another way of describing neural facilitation and inhibition. Certainly most neural activity, perhaps all, involves facilitation and inhibition of signals at multiple synapses. Repression is just a psychological construct to describe what the processes of facilitation and inhibition bring about in terms of meaningful mental activity. While we are on the topic of choice of words, the repeated description of the dynamic unconscious as subterranean is an inflammatory locution designed to rally opposition to the notion. The cognitive unconscious is equally subterranean.To look further into the supposed superiority of explanation via the cognitive unconscious, we see that O'Brien and Jureidini attribute the following processes to the cognitive unconscious: evaluation, decision making, editing out, filling in, reconstruction, and reconfiguration. But what are the bases of these processes? What guides or influences the way ideas, images, and emotions are reconstructed and reconfigured? It does not appear to be done randomly. When the reconstructive narrative becomes "significantly distorted" because the memory to be retrieved is fraught with distress, what accounts for the shape of the distortion and what (dare we say who?) recognizes that a memory is about to be distressing? We may all be unhappy with the notion of a dynamic unconscious... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hildegard: Medieval Holism and ‘Presentism’—Or, Did Sigewiza Have Health Insurance?Jerome L. Kroll (bio)Keywordsholistic healing, presentism, Hildegard of Bingen, medieval medicineSuzanne Phillips and Monique Boivin have published an article examining Hildegard of Bingen’s (1098–179) treatment and cure of Sigewiza, a possessed woman. The purpose of their article is to demonstrate Hildegard’s holistic, or biopsychosocial, approach to healing as a model that we in the twenty-first century have lost (...) but would do well to recover. Several questions come to mind:What is Hildegard’s model?Have we lost it?Is it something we wish to emulate?The basics of the case history is that a noblewoman, Sigewiza, is ill or possessed of an evil spirit. Attempts by her local abbot and community to send her on pilgrimages or otherwise to cure or exorcise her, even with Hildegard’s recommendation, have only short-lived success, after which Sigewiza’s illness or demon returns. Finally, the abbot asks Hildegard to take the noblewoman into her Benedictine monastery, and after a suitable time and various interventions, Sigewiza is permanently (presumably) cured. The arduous process of effecting this cure has left Hildegard weak and ill herself, a pattern of poor physical health from which Hildegard suffered all her life.Phillips and Boivin claim that this is an early example of conceptualizing and utilizing a bio-psychosocial model to treat a complex illness. Hildegard, well known for her medical and pharmaceutical knowledge, applies the proper dietary changes to correct Sigewiza’s humoral (biological) imbalance. She treats the psyche and its partner, the soul, by long hours of discussion with Sigewiza and verbal duels with her demon, as well as by exorcising the demon, and she includes the social aspects of treatment by bringing Sigewiza into the Benedictine community of sisters as a participating member. Which of these three modalities may be sufficient for a cure depends upon the medieval literary genre in which the case appears. If in a medical text, then the proper dietary treatment and application of compounds to neutralize and correct the offending humoral imbalances would be the therapeutic agents. In medieval hagiography, [End Page 369] the biological modality is never sufficient and often ridiculed, because the entire thrust of the text is to demonstrate the futility of medical (secular) ministrations and the effectiveness of saintly intervention in producing a cure, whether or not exorcism is technically part of the process. In Sigewiza’s case, perhaps because of the stubbornness of the possessing demon or because of other factors attached to Sigewiza’s condition, the three (biopsychosocial) modalities are utilized. It seems that Sigewiza has a treatment-resistant illness.The narrative follows a familiar topos in saint’s lives (Kroll and Bachrach 2005). Attempts to cure a demoniac by prayers, pilgrimages, intercessions of other local saints or reputedly holy persons, and sometimes by physicians (when available) are to no avail. The sufferer is brought, amidst great fanfare and public attention (a media event), to the holy woman who is the central figure of the particular Vita, and the sufferer is promptly, or protractedly, cured. In such an account, the holiness of the holy woman is further demonstrated and her reputation, shrine, and influence are duly extended and enhanced. The holy person, with humility, attributes the intercession and cure to the power of God, or Jesus or Mary or a particular patron saint, but the crowd of onlookers and the audience of the Vita understand that God (or Jesus or Mary) has in fact granted the miracle cure as a way of demonstrating the holiness of this holy person in contrast to those who previously tried to cure the ill person. The abbot who ‘referred’ Sigewiza to Hildegard, and the previous saints’ shrine to whom Sigewiza was brought, although generally acknowledged as being of fine character or respectability, had to suffer the ignominy of their petitions being rejected to dramatize the special regard in which Hildegard is held.Although we can say that the “purposes” for which Hildegard’s hagiographer includes such anecdotes is to demonstrate her holiness and her importance in God’s eyes, this does not stop us, nine centuries later, from using such... (shrink)

In this expanded edition, an accomplished physician and teacher of medicine discusses the importance of being a caring doctor, especially now that the focus of medicine is increasingly on technological innovation and health care costs. With wisdom and compassion, Dr. Jerome Lowenstein tells stories about relationships between medical students and their teachers, physicians and their patients. He reflects on what doctors learn from treating chronic illness; how they respond to patients' needs for reassurance; how they bear the burden of (...) treating patients with life-threatening or degenerative disease; whether the distinction between traditional and "alternative" medical treatment is ultimately beneficial or destructive; and many other issues. Dr. Lowenstein's ruminations on humanistic approaches to learning and practicing medicine will be treasured by physicians, medical students, and patients alike. (shrink)

We all know that doctors accept gifts from drug companies, ranging from pens and coffee mugs to free vacations at luxurious resorts. But as the former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine reveals in this shocking expose, these innocuous-seeming gifts are just the tip of an iceberg that is distorting the practice of medicine and jeopardizing the health of millions of Americans today. In On the Take, Dr. Jerome Kassirer offers an unsettling look at the pervasive payoffs (...) that physicians take from big drug companies and other medical suppliers, arguing that the billion-dollar onslaught of industry money has deflected many physicians' moral compasses and directly impacted the everyday care we receive from the doctors and institutions we trust most. Underscored by countless chilling untold stories, the book illuminates the financial connections between the wealthy companies that make drugs and the doctors who prescribe them. Kassirer details the shocking extent of these financial enticements and explains how they encourage bias, promote dangerously misleading medical information, raise the cost of medical care, and breed distrust. Among the questionable practices he describes are: the disturbing number of senior academic physicians who have financial arrangements with drug companies; the unregulated "front" organizations that advocate certain drugs; the creation of biased medical education materials by the drug companies themselves; and the use of financially conflicted physicians to write clinical practice guidelines or to testify before the FDA in support of a particular drug. A brilliant diagnosis of an epidemic of greed, On the Take offers insight into how we can cure the medical profession and restore our trust in doctors and hospitals. (shrink)

Is it a good time to be alive? Is ours a good society to be alive in? Is it possible to have a good life in our time? And finally, does a good life consist of having a good time? Are happiness and “a good life” interchangeable? These are the questions that Mortimer Adler addresses himself to. The heart of the book lies in its conception of the good life for man, which provides the standard for measuring a century, a (...) society, or a culture: for upon that turns the meaning of each man’s primary moral right – his right to the pursuit of happiness. The moral philosophy that Dr. Adler expounds in terms of this conception he calls “the ethics of common sense,” because it is as a defense and development of the common-sense answer to the question “can I really make a good life for myself?”. (shrink)

Preface by Dr. Franz Alexander - Director, Psychiatric and Pychosomatic Research Institute Mount Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles. Vol. 9.

Dr. Friedrich is Easton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard and the author of numerous books. As the title indicates, the present volume is, in the main, an historical survey—and the author displays a very comprehensive grasp of the history of legal philosophy.

This past summer, I was having lunch in Toronto with Dr. Raymond Macken, general editor of the critical edition of the Opera Omnia of Henry of Ghent, and author of the Preface to this excellent translation of several important quodlibetal questions of Henry on a topic that has long proved itself fraught with difficulties for scholars of Henry's thought. Macken held this very work in his hand and said, "English is the new Latin. We must provide more and more translations (...) of Henry's work for students of his ideas." In spite of a veritable renaissance in Latin studies, in the United States in particular, the remark seems as justified as it is melancholic. (shrink)

In the 1860s, Dr. Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux introduced a set of papier-mâché teaching models intended for use in the botanical classroom. These botanical models quickly made their way into the educational curricula of institutions around the world. Within these institutions, Auzoux’s models were principally used to fulfil educational goals, but their incorporation into diverse curricula also suggests they were used to implement agendas beyond botanical instruction. This essay examines the various uses and meanings of Dr. Auzoux’s botanical teaching models (...) at the universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen in the nineteenth century. The two main conclusions of this analysis are: investing in prestigious scientific collections was a way for these universities to attract fee-paying students so that better medical accommodation could be provided and models were used to transmit different kinds of botanical knowledge at both universities. The style of botany at the University of Glasgow was offensive and the department there actively embraced and incorporated ideas of the emerging new botany. At Aberdeen, the style of botany was defensive and there was some hesitancy when confronting new botanical ideas. (shrink)

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...

How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple language input from birth and when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for (...) cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science. (shrink)

In this manuscript we describe Proteogenomics Viewer, a web‐based tool that collects MS peptide identification, indexes to genomic sequence and structure, assigns exon usage, reports the identified protein isoforms with genomic alignments and, most importantly, allows the inspection of MS2 information for proper peptide identification. It also provides all performed indexing to facilitate global analysis of the data. The relevance of such tool is that there has been an increase in the number of proteogenomic efforts to improve the annotation of (...) both genomics and proteomics data, culminating with the release of the two human proteome drafts. It is now clear that mass spectrometry‐based peptide identification of uncharacterized sequences, such as those resulting from unpredicted exon joints or non‐coding regions, is still prone to a higher than expected false discovery rate. Therefore, proper visualization of the raw data and the corresponding genome alignments are fundamental for further data validation and interpretation. (shrink)

This paper presents a general computational treatment of how mammals are able to deal with visual objects and environments. The model tries to cover the entire range from behavior and phenomenological experience to detailed neural encodings in crude but computationally plausible reductive steps. The problems addressed include perceptual constancies, eye movements and the stable visual world, object descriptions, perceptual generalizations, and the representation of extrapersonal space.The entire development is based on an action-oriented notion of perception. The observer is assumed to (...) be continuously sampling the ambient light for information of current value. The central problem of vision is taken to be categorizing and locating objects in the environment. The critical step in this process is the linking of visual information to symbolic object descriptions; this is calledindexing, from the analogy of identifying a book from index terms. The system must also identifysituationsand use this knowledge to guide movement and other actions in the environment. The treatment focuses on the different representations of information used in the visual system.The four representational frames capture information in the following forms: retinotopic, head-based, symbolic, and allocentric. The functional roles of the four frames, the communication among them, and their suggested neurophysiological realization constitute the core of the paper. The model is perforce crude, but appears to be consistent with all relevant findings. (shrink)

Three experiments explored the effects of word problem cueing on debiasing versions of the bat-and-ball problem. In the experimental condition order, participants solved a simpler isomorphic version of the problem prior to solving a standard version that, critically, had the same item-and-dollar amounts. Conversely, in the control condition order, participants solved the standard version prior to solving the isomorph. Across the first 2 experiments, participants cued with the isomorph were more likely to correctly solve the standard version of the problem. (...) In the third experiment, this cueing effect was not replicated, but importantly cued participants were more likely to correctly solve the standard version of the problem with other item-and-dollar amounts, indicating near transfer. Far transfer was evident in faster response times to other problems in the Cognitive Reflection Test following practice. Along with providing converging evidence for the cueing account, these results are consistent with recent attentional debiasing findings. (shrink)

In examining the puzzle of experience, and its possible solutions, Valberg discusses relevant views of Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Strawson, as well as ideas from the recent philosophy of perception. Finally, he describes and analyzes a manifestation of the puzzle outside philosophy, in everyday experience.

First published in 1977, Emotion, Thought and Therapy is a study of Hume and Spinoza and the relationship of philosophical theories of the emotions to psychological theories of therapy. Jerome Neu argues that the Spinozists are closer to the truth; that is, that thoughts are of greater importance than feelings in the classification and discrimination of emotional states. He then contends that if the Spinozists are closer to the truth, we have the beginning of an argument to show that (...) Freudian or analytic therapies make philosophic sense. Throughout the book, careful attention is paid to modern discussions in philosophy of mind and psychology, and materials from anthropology and other relevant disciplines are considered. At the centre of the discussion is the notion of ‘thought-dependence’. Therapies for psychological disorders are placed along a spectrum in accordance with the role they assign to thoughts. The Spinozist view of the emotions can be seen as at the extreme thought end of a corresponding spectrum of theories of the emotions. The book suggests that this stream may help explain the spectrum of therapeutic theories and the possibilities that exist for psychological development and change. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy, psychology and counselling. (shrink)

This remarkable book is the most comprehensive study ever written of the history of moral philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its aim is to set Kant's still influential ethics in its historical context by showing in detail what the central questions in moral philosophy were for him and how he arrived at his own distinctive ethical views. The book is organised into four main sections, each exploring moral philosophy by discussing the work of many influential philosophers of the (...) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In an epilogue the author discusses Kant's view of his own historicity, and of the aims of moral philosophy. In its range, in its analyses of many philosophers not discussed elsewhere, and in revealing the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy, this is an unprecedented account of the evolution of Kant's ethics. (shrink)

Christopher Boorse’s biostatistical theory of medical disorder claims that biological part-dysfunction (i.e., failure of an internal mechanism to perform its biological function), a factual criterion, is both necessary and sufficient for disorder. Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of medical disorder agrees that part-dysfunction is necessary but rejects the sufficiency claim, maintaining that disorder also requires that the part-dysfunction causes harm to the individual, a value criterion. In this paper, I present two considerations against the sufficiency claim. First, I analyze (...) Boorse’s central argument for the sufficiency claim, the “pathologist argument,” which takes pathologists’ intuitions about pathology as determinative of medical disorder and conclude that it begs the question and fails to support the sufficiency claim. Second, I present four counterexamples from the medical literature in which salient part-dysfunctions are considered nondisorders, including healthy disease carriers, HIV-positive status, benign mutations, and situs inversus totalis, thus falsifying the sufficiency claim and supporting the harm criterion. (shrink)

Here in more than a hundred photographs is portrayed Liebling's Minnesota. During two decades marked by social, political and cultural change, Liebling travelled the state and found his largest subject -- the depiction and interpretation of commonplace human experience. The images range from the grain elevators and skid row of Minneapolis to the slaughterhouses in South St. Paul and the poor, working-class streets of St. Paul's West Side; from the Iron Range and the Red Lake Indian reservation in the north (...) to the farming towns in the south. The vision of Minnesota that emerges from the extraordinary photographs is uniquely that of the artist, yet it leads viewers effortlessly to an enhanced understanding of the places, the times, and, always, the people. (shrink)

The sounds produced by animals have been a topic of research into animal behaviour for a very long time. If acoustic signals are undoubtedly a vehicle for exchanging information between individuals, environmental sounds embed as well a significant level of data related to the ecology of populations, communities and landscapes. The consideration of environmental sounds for ecological investigations opens up a field of research that we define with the term ecoacoustics. In this paper, we draw the contours of ecoacoustics by (...) detailing: the main theories, concepts and methods used in ecoacoustic research, and the numerous outcomes that can be expected from the ecological approach to sound. Ecoacoustics has several theoretical and practical challenges, but we firmly believe that this new approach to investigating ecological processes will generate abundant and exciting research programs. (shrink)

Is jealousy eliminable? If so, at what cost? What are the connections between pride the sin and the pride insisted on by identity politics? How can one question an individual's understanding of their own happiness or override a society's account of its own rituals? What is wrong with incest? These and other questions about what sustains and threatens our identity are pursued using the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines. The discussion throughout is informed and motivated by the Spinozist (...) hope that understanding our lives can help change them, can help make us more free. (shrink)

Episodic memory involves the sense that it is “first-hand”, i.e., originates directly from one’s own past experience. An account of this phenomenological dimension is offered in terms of an affective experience or feeling specific to episodic memory. On the basis of recent empirical research in the domain of metamemory, it is claimed that a recollective experience involves two separate mental components: a first-order memory about the past along with a metacognitive, episodic feeling of knowing. The proposed two-tiered account is contrasted (...) with other, reductionist two-tiered accounts as well as with reflexive accounts of episodic memory to be found in the literature. (shrink)

A theory that treats language not as an abstract symbol system but as a function of our brains and experience, integrating recent findings from biology, ...

Is jealousy eliminable? If so, at what cost? What are the connections between pride the sin and the pride insisted on by identity politics? How can one question an individual's understanding of their own happiness or override a society's account of its own rituals? What makes a sexual desire "perverse," or particular sexual relations undesirable or even unthinkable? These and other questions about what sustains and threatens our identity are pursued using the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines. The (...) discussion throughout is informed and motivated by the Spinozist hope that understanding our lives can help change them, can help make us more free. (shrink)

Fair Trade has changed considerably since its early days. In this article, we argue that these changes have led to a depersonalization of ethics, thus raising serious questions about the future of Fair Trade. In particular, the depersonalization of ethics which is seen to accompany the current changes has led to greater variety in the interpretations of Fair Trade. Hiding these divergences behind the labels is increasing the risk that the movement will lose its credibility.