Nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet, this book is a summary of the penetrating thought of ...

Moral Perception It is a familiar thought that many of our beliefs are directly justified epistemically by perception. For example, she sees what looks to her to be a cat on the mat, and from this she is justified in saying “There is a cat on the mat.” This article explores the idea that our … Continue reading Moral Perception →.

Clinical neuropsychologists have been working in Germany since the 1980s, and specific training in the discipline has been available since 1993. The qualification currently requires 3 years of practical training, 400 h of theoretical learning, 100 h of supervision, five reports on patients and an oral examination. After its completion, neuropsychologists can work as employees in clinical settings. For a substantial period of time, neuropsychologists working in their own practices faced complex challenges in working with outpatients, whose health insurers did (...) not cover the cost of this treatment. State approval of neuropsychological diagnostic procedures and therapy was achieved in 2011, on the basis of evidence showing the method’s high effectiveness; statutory health insurers therefore now pay out for delivery of these services on an outpatient basis, too. In Germany, neuropsychologists work in all areas of the diagnosis of functional disorders, with children, adolescents, adults and older adults, and carry out treatment. Clinical neuropsychologists provide patients with individualized tools for managing their brain damage, supply exercises and tasks for them to undertake at home, and give input on administrative matters, such as determining the degree of a patient’s disability. Treatment takes place in close collaboration with members of related professions, such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists. Neuropsychologists also work as assessors, investigating, for example, the extent of a patient’s ability to work after sustaining CNS damage or the need for medical retirement. The earnings of clinical neuropsychologists vary widely, currently averaging between €3,000 and €4,000 gross per month for employed neuropsychologists; self-employed neuropsychologists in their own practices can currently bill statutory health insurers for around €100.00 per hour. Despite the generally good working conditions in this discipline, Germany is suffering from a shortage of clinical neuropsychologists. An approximate total of 800 psychologists have completed training in this field, while around 50,000 patients could benefit from neuropsychological treatment every year. (shrink)

Marxist literature differentiates between three types of laws of the spiritual life of society. First, there are the universal sociological regularities of development of social consciousness . In the second place, there are law-governed connections within social consciousness. They express the interrelationships among the various aspects and elements of social consciousness, and their operation is confined to the realm of social consciousness. Third, there are the law-governed connections and manifestations specific to various historical types of social consciousness.

All thinking is done by our brains. They are also responsible for our feelings of love and hate, and for our ability to make and appreciate art. But there is a popular reluctance to credit the brain with some of these so-called higher functions. We have difficulty associating our appreciation of beauty with electrical impulses propagating down nerve fibres. We don't see love as residing in the organ that is hidden away inside the skull, where it sits, shaped like a (...) boxing glove, grey, motionless, and seemingly inert. Instead, the icon of love is that fist-sized muscle in your chest. (shrink)

Subjective consciousness suggests a unity of sensing and perceiving self that is difficult to reconcile with the multiplicity of sensory analyzers and the absence of a convergence zone in the brain. This has led—on the one hand—to the dead-end assumption of a unifying sentient homunculus and—on the other—to a denial of conscious unity. The sketchpad model presented here avoids this dilemma by viewing conscious thought as a selfreferent loop of neural activity, rather than as the information content of a fictitious (...) set of output neurons. Use is made of the numerous neural pathways that originate at various cortical and subcortical areas and terminate in the thalamus. The model assumes that primary sensory outputs are modified by such feedback in the thalamic relay nuclei through hill-climbing processes that tend to optimize global responses. (shrink)

Our brains are characterized by sensory pathways that are highly reflexive, allowing higher cortical centres to control neural activity patterns at peripheral sensory areas. This feature is characterized as an internal sketchpad and involves recursive interactions between central symbols and peripheral images. The process is assumed to be the fundamental mechanism underlying most cognitive functions. The paper attempts to portray the beginnings of art and language as natural extensions of these pre-existing internal processes, made possible by the greatly enlarged human (...) prefrontal cortex. It views these highly social activities as originating in subjective, private discourse between the emerging self and its externalized expressions. (shrink)

From time to time medical ethicists bemoan the loss of a religious perspective in medical ethics. The discipline had its origins in the thinking of explicitly religious thinkers such as Paul Ramsey and Joseph Fletcher. Furthermore, many of those who contributed to the early development of the discipline had training in theology. One thinks of Daniel Callahan, Richard McCormick, Albert Jonsen, Sam. Banks. As the discipline becomes more and more self-reflective, with attention being paid to methodological and conditional concerns, it (...) is only natural that the roots are due for a reexamination. The time has therefore come for some reassessment. The first steps here are taken in the form of a dialogue between the coauthors to clarify authentic contributions and weed out unauthentic ones. (shrink)

Modern man's pathology of normalcy -- The concept of mental health -- Humanistic science of man -- Is man lazy by nature?.