Plurality of beliefs and theories in different knowledge domains calls for modelling multi-viewpoint ontologies and knowledge organization systems. A generic theoretical approach recently proposed for heterogeneity representation in KOS was linking each ontological statement to a specific validity scope to determine a set of conditions under which the statement is valid. However, the practical applicability of this approach has yet to be empirically assessed. In addition, there is still a need to investigate the types of inconsistencies that might arise in (...) multi-viewpoint ontologies as well as their possible causes. This study proposes a new framework for systematic analysis and classification of inconsistencies in multi-viewpoint ontologies. The framework is based on eight generic logical structures of ontological statements. To test the validity of the proposed framework, two ontologies from different knowledge domains were examined. We found that only three of the eight structures led to inconsistencies in both ontologies, while the other two structures were always present in logically consistent statements. The study has practical implications for building diversified and personalized knowledge systems. (shrink)

This article explores attempts at legalization of the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Although in many countries there have been high levels of public support for euthanasia and assisted suicide, in most of them, no legislative activity has taken place concerning these practices, and there is a lack of clarity about what is permitted and what is not. I argue that accurate definition of the relevant concepts and a clear delineation of the territory of the debate would help draw (...) a coherent roadmap for legalization. To this end, I analyze five legal approaches to the legalization euthanasia: maintenance of the status quo, legal defenses, de-prioritization, de-criminalization, and legislation. I conclude with a discussion of the moral and legal implications of the foregoing analysis. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant has long been considered one of the leading exponents of the theory of knowledge with his philosophical writings inspiring generations of political theorists, underpinning many notions and ideas on the concept of progress. Based on and innovative reading of Kant's theory of knowledge, this book challenges contemporary critiques of the concept of progress from post-Marxist, post-Modern and or existentialist approaches which dismiss progress as an anachronistic and deceptive concept that has formed the basis of many of modernity's abominations. (...) Instead this book reveals Kant's unique synthetic theory of knowledge, arguing that the idea of progress should be thought of as a crucial political idea in matters of political management at the outset of the 21st century. (shrink)

In contrast to the fruitful relationship between psychoanalysis/psychoanalysts and the humanities, institutionalized psychoanalysis has been largely resistant to the integration of psychoanalysis with other empirical branches of knowledge, as well as clinical ones [primarily cognitive-behavioral therapy ]. Drawing from two decades of theoretical and empirical work on psychopathology, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis, the author aims to show how a reformulation of object relations theory using psychological science may enhance a clinical-psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of suicidal depression, which constitutes one of the (...) most formidable health challenges of our time. Specifically, he rewrote the notion of Melanie Klein positions—primarily the depressive position—using extant knowledge of structure of emotions, the centrality of mental representations of the future and the toxic nature of criticism-based emotions. This reformulation enables a dialog between clinical psychoanalysis and other therapeutic schools of thought and sheds light on the understanding and treatment of suicidal depression. (shrink)

I explore, from a proof-theoretic perspective, the hierarchy of classical and paraconsistent logics introduced by Barrio, Pailos and Szmuc in (Journal o f Philosophical Logic,49, 93-120, 2021). First, I provide sequent rules and axioms for all the logics in the hierarchy, for all inferential levels, and establish soundness and completeness results. Second, I show how to extend those systems with a corresponding hierarchy of validity predicates, each one of which is meant to capture “validity” at a different inferential level. Then, (...) I point out two potential philosophical implications of these results. (i) Since the logics in the hierarchy differ from one another on the rules, I argue that each such logic maintains its own distinct identity (contrary to arguments like the one given by Dicher and Paoli in 2019). (ii) Each validity predicate need not capture “validity” at more than one metainferential level. Hence, there are reasons to deny the thesis (put forward in Barrio, E., Rosenblatt, L. & Tajer, D. (Synthese, 2016)) that the validity predicate introduced in by Beall and Murzi in (Journal o f Philosophy,110(3), 143–165, 2013) has to express facts not only about what follows from what, but also about the metarules, etc. (shrink)

Patients with advanced dementia suffer from severe cognitive and functional impairment, including eating disorders. The focus of our research is on the issue of life-sustaining treatment, specifically on the social and ethical implications of tube feeding. The treatment decision, based on values of life and dignity, involves sustaining lives that many people consider not worth living. We explore the moral approach to caring for these patients and review the history of the debate on artificial nutrition and hydration showing the impact (...) of the varying perceptions of the value of these patients' lives on changing norms. We argue that in light of the value of solidarity, decisions about life-sustaining treatment for patients with advanced dementia should be made on a case by case basis, as with any other patient, in consideration of the medical implications of the intervention which might best serve the goals of care for the individual patient. (shrink)

Substructural solutions to the semantic paradoxes have been broadly discussed in recent years. In particular, according to the non-transitive solution, we have to give up the metarule of Cut, whose role is to guarantee that the consequence relation is transitive. This concession—giving up a meta rule—allows us to maintain the entire consequence relation of classical logic. The non-transitive solution has been generalized in recent works into a hierarchy of logics where classicality is maintained at more and more metainferential levels. All (...) the logics in this hierarchy can accommodate a truth predicate, including the logic at the top of the hierarchy—known as CMω—which presumably maintains classicality at all levels. CMω has so far been accounted for exclusively in model-theoretic terms. Therefore, there remains an open question: how do we account for this logic in proof-theoretic terms? Can there be found a proof system that admits each and every classical principle—at all inferential levels—but nevertheless blocks the derivation of the liar? In the present paper, I solve this problem by providing such a proof system and establishing soundness and completeness results. Yet, I also argue that the outcome is philosophically unsatisfactory. In fact, I’m afraid that in light of my results this metainferential solution to the paradoxes can hardly be called a “solution,” let alone a good one. (shrink)

The history of Israeli science and technology offers a unique case study of a young and small nation that has developed an unprecedented love affair with science and technology. Unlike other nineteenth-century ideologies, Zionism was never considered to be founded on science. Nevertheless, from the very start, the Zionist movement perceived the sciences, pure and applied, as central to its program of creating a new Jewish society in the Land of Israel. Modern science was to provide twice for the Jews: (...) a relief from their suffocating religion and the tools needed to recover their ancient land from its ruins. Israel would remain the people of the book, but it would be the Book of Nature, not of God, that would set it free. Sharing the universal knowledge and values of science with mankind, the Jews would finally become both normal and self-determined. Thus, already in the nineteenth century, long before the State of Israel was founded, Zionist visionaries had dreamt of it as a modern version of Francis Bacon's utopian Kingdom of Bensalem, where science and technology would provide health, wealth, and power. (shrink)

I introduce a novel and quite intuitive interpretation of the ternary relation that figures in the relational semantics of many relevance logics. Conceptually, my interpretation makes use only of incompatibility and parthood relations, defined over a set of states. In this way, the proposed interpretation—of the ternary relation and the conditional—extends Dunn’s and Restall’s works on negation and the Routley star operator. Therefore, the interpretation is unified, and hence not only intuitive but also parsimonious. Additionally, the interpretation provides us with (...) a cogent argument to the effect that a ternary relation is indispensable, and we cannot merely do with a binary relation. (shrink)

Several authors maintain that we are capable of having inconsistent intentional states, either in cases of illusion, in certain cases of imagination, or because the observable world is (partly) inconsistent and we perceive it as such. These views are all premised on the assumption that inconsistent intentional states—even if acknowledged—are peculiar and have nothing essential to do with our perceptual capacities. In the present article, I would like to present, and argue for, a much stronger thesis: that inconsistent intentional states (...) underlie the possibility of having intentional content in mind. I argue for this thesis based on a Husserlian phenomenological analysis of our grasp of objects, which I formulate in terms of incompatibility semantics. (shrink)

The use of models to assign truth values to sentences and to counterexemplify invalid inferences is a basic feature of model theory. Yet sentences and inferences are not the only phenomena that model theory has to take care of. In particular, the development of sequent calculi raises the question of how metainferences are to be accounted for from a model-theoretic perspective. Unfortunately there is no agreement on this matter. Rather, one can find in the literature two competing model-theoretic notions of (...) metainferential validity, known as the ‘global’ notion and the ‘local’ notion. In this article, I argue that, given certain plausible considerations about metainferential validity, the global notion collapses into the local notion. (shrink)

The increasing awareness of personal health responsibility had led to the claim that patients with ‘self-inflicted’ conditions have less of a right to treatment at the public's expense than patients whose conditions arose from ‘uncontrollable’ causes. This paper suggests that regardless of any social decision as to the limits and scope of individual responsibility for health, the moral framework for discussing this issue is equality. In order to reach a consensus, discourse should be according to the common basis of all (...) theories of justice, Aristotle's formal principle of justice: ‘equals must be treated equally and unequals must be treated unequally, in proportion to the relevant inequality’. This paper deals with the question of whether and under what circumstances risk-taking behaviour could be regarded as a ‘relevant inequality’ with respect to the right to health care. Following a discussion of the relevant inequalities in health care, the conclusion is reached that the fact that the condition was avoidably caused by the patient and is therefore his or her fault can not be regarded necessarily as a relevant inequality. Therefore, the issue is one of societal support for health care; after defining relevant inequalities in this respect, the paper attempts to apply them to self-inflicted conditions. This analysis reveals that, in theory, it may be just to restrict societal support in such cases. However, the application of this conclusion requires proof of many factual claims—for which there is often very limited evidence. (shrink)

This article attempts to demystify computer vision for novice programmers through a survey of new applications in the arts, system design considerations, and contemporary tools. It introduces the concept and gives a brief history of computer vision within interactive art from Myron Kruger to the present. Basic techniques of computer vision such as detecting motion and object tracking are discussed in addition to various software applications created for exploring the topic. As an example, the results of a one-week machine vision (...) workshop are presented to show how designers are able to apply their skills toward creating novel uses of these technologies. The article concludes with a listing of code for basic computer vision techniques. (shrink)

Anecdotal reports obtained from three individuals with prosopagnosia, all of whom have participated in an investigation, capture the essence of their impairment. This article focuses on the contrast between two prominent forms of prosopagnosia, one of which results from an acquired brain insult in an otherwise premorbidly normal individual and a second which appears to be lifelong and occurs in the absence of any obvious brain damage, at least as evident on conventional brain imaging. It reviews two central issues: the (...) first concerns the similarities and differences in the psychological representations of faces in acquired prosopagnosia and congenital prosopagnosia, and the second concerns the nature of the underlying neural representations of faces in these two populations. Some well-established overlapping behavioral characteristics are identified. (shrink)

Sleep-related experiences [Watson, D. . Dissociations of the night: Individual differences in sleep-related experiences and their relation to dissociation and schizotypy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 526–535] refer to a host of nocturnal altered-consciousness phenomena, including narcoleptic tendencies, nightmares, problem-solving dreams, waking dreams, and lucid dreams. In an attempt to clarify the meaning of this construct, we examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of sleep-related experiences , altered-consciousness tendencies , psychological distress, childhood maltreatment , and life stress in young adults. Both (...) types of SREs were found to be distinguishable from altered-consciousness tendencies. Transliminality emerged as a longitudinal predictor of both general SREs and lucid dreams. Psychological distress and an increase in life stress predicted an increase in general SREs over a 3-month interval. We conclude that transliminality is a general altered-consciousness trait that accounts for some of the individual differences in sleep-related experiences, and that general sleep experiences are an outcome of psychological distress and life stress. (shrink)

Minimally inconsistent LP (MiLP) is a nonmonotonic paraconsistent logic based on Graham Priest's logic of paradox (LP). Unlike LP, MiLP purports to recover, in consistent situations, all of classical reasoning. The present paper conducts a proof-theoretic analysis of MiLP. I highlight certain properties of this logic, introduce a simple sequent system for it, and establish soundness and completeness results. In addition, I show how to use my proof system in response to a criticism of this logic put forward by JC (...) Beall. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper provides a historical perspective to one of the liveliest debates in common law courts today — the one over scientific expert testimony. Arguing against the current tendency to present the problem of expert testimony as a late twentieth-century predicament which threatens to spin out of control, the paper shows that the phenomena of conflicting scientific testimonies have been perennial for at least two centuries, and intensely debated in both the legal and the scientific communities for at least (...) 150 years. (shrink)

Emerging action perspectives on psychopathology depict individuals as actively shaping those environmental conditions that then impact on their risk for psychopathology, resilience in the face of it, and successful recovery from it. This view, although having important implications for research and clinical practice, has yet to be articulated in terms of its underlying philosophical framework. To begin to address this challenge, we situate action theory in the context of the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, who, in their seemingly anti-psychiatric series (...) entitled Capitalism and Schizophrenia, argue for the central role of human agency as a fundamentally active force in determining subjective life. Within this context, they propose an alternative approach to the current deficit focus of much psychopathology research, replacing the notion of deficit with a fundamentally productive notion of desire (what they call “desiring-production”). After our exposition of this philosophical perspective on human agency, implications of this approach for action-informed research and clinical practice are discussed. (shrink)

Conventionalism about logic is the view that logical principles hold in virtue of some linguistic conventions. According to explicit conventionalism, these conventions have to be stipulated explicitly. Explicit conventionalism is subject to a famous criticism by Quine, who accused it of leading to an infinite regress. In response to the criticism, several authors have suggested reconstructing conventionalism as implicit in our linguistic behaviour. In this paper, drawing on a distinction from proof theory between derivable and admissible rules, I argue that (...) implicit conventionalism has not been stated in a sufficiently precise way, as it leaves open what one needs to say about admissible yet underivable rules. Moreover, it turns out that this challenge cannot be easily met, and that any attempt to meet the challenge makes conventionalism much less attractive a thesis. (shrink)

Though we have access to a wealth of information, the main issue is always how to process the available information. How to make sense of all we observe and know. Just like the English alphabet: we know there are 26 letters but unless we put these letters together in a meaningful way, they convey no information. There are infinitely many ways of putting these letters together. Only a small number of those make sense. Only some of those convey exactly what (...) we wish to convey though the message may be interpreted differently by different individuals. That same issue comes up with information: how can we process the information we have? How can we infer and reason under conditions of incomplete observed information? In his seminal book on the philosophy of information, Floridi (2011a) raises a number of open questions. I discuss here one of these questions. That question is how to process information. To do so, I take the more realistic view that information is always limited, incomplete and possibly noisy. I define types of information, relate it to Floridi’s definitions and discuss a basic formulation for processing information under a unified framework. I relate it to some of the basic concepts discussed in the book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introducing a “Deleuze Effect” into PsychiatryLarry Davidson (bio) and Golan Shahar (bio)Keywordsdesire, intentionality, psychopathology, agency, action theory, desiring-production, active and reactive forcesYou have to keep small rations of subjectivity in sufficient quantity to enable you to respond to the dominant reality.(Deleuze and Guattari 1987160)We are very pleased with the variety of responses our article has generated thus far and hope that it continues to provoke dialogue. That was, (...) we think, our in tent—should we be allowed to hold on to any such “thing” as an intention. We also take the diversity of these responses to reflect one of our key challenges in using Deleuze’s thought to reform (as op posed merely to inform) psychiatric practice: How to make a radical philosophy accessible enough to a broad enough audience for it to bring about substantive, real change in an existing culture in the hic et nunc, the here and now. That is why we chose the quotation above from Mille Plateaux. Even Deleuze (with Guattari) encourages us to keep “small rations” of subjectivity at hand if we are interested in responding to the “dominant reality.” And that has been our main agenda; to engage with the dominant reality of deficit-based psychiatric theory and practice to overturn it, or, in Clegg’s terms, “explode” it from within.In this regard, we certainly agree with Evangelista and Clegg that much more remains to be done, both in developing our position and in exploring its implications for practice. We view our “Deficit to Desire” paper as simply a first step in this direction (e.g., Shahar and Davidson, in press). We thought it necessary first, as we wrote in the original paper, to articulate the theoretical underpinnings of an action model for clinical understanding and practice “at a philosophical level of discourse on the one hand, but also in such a way that they provide a concrete, substantially different point of departure for empirical studies of psychopathology, on the other.” But why is this important, and what implications does it have for our response to these three thoughtful commentaries?A first implication is that our primary aim is not to provide a comprehensive exposition of Deleuze’s thought. In our opinion, even attempting to give a comprehensive exposition of Deleuze’s thought would actually go directly against its main thrust, which we view as to ignite and propagate ever new and creative lines of flight which carry desiring-production into “a small plot of new land at all times” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 161). “Experiment,” entreats Deleuze, “don’t interpret” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 139). We would guess, in fact, that Deleuze no more wanted to [End Page 243] produce Deleuzeans than Kierkegaard wanted disciples going around the Danish countryside after his death spreading the word that Kierkegaard did not want disciples going around the Danish countryside after his death (one of our favorites among his many ironies). So although we agree that there is much more in Deleuze’s thought than what is contained in our paper, we think that to some degree it misses its point. In Deleuzean fashion, we want to use the “Deleuze effect” to bring radical change to psychiatry (and we appreciate the irony of that too). Although both Evangelista and Clegg seem to welcome this effort, despite their misgivings, Weiner clearly is worried. Weiner also seems to have had the most intimate experience of the psychiatric system—that is, is most familiar with the world we are trying to change—so we focus in particular on his very understandable concerns.It also happens to be the case that focusing on Weiner’s concerns brings us immediately back to the nature of the effect we were hoping to have. Weiner explains that people with serious mental illnesses are “oppressed from within” and that their affliction seems to be coming “from a seemingly autonomous place” that is “within us, but not ultimately of us.” We could not agree more, and appreciate the lucidity and eloquence with which he makes this astute and important point. Several years ago, one of us even attempted a Husserlian-inspired analysis of how a person... (shrink)

Graham Priest has formulated the minimally inconsistent logic of paradox (MiLP), which is paraconsistent like Priest’s logic of paradox (LP), while staying closer to classical logic. We present logics that stand to (the propositional fragments of) strong Kleene logic (K3) and the logic of first-degree entailment (FDE) as MiLP stands to LP. That is, our logics share the paracomplete and the paraconsistent-cum-paracomplete nature of K3 and FDE, respectively, while keeping these features to a minimum in order to stay closer to (...) classical logic. We give semantic and sequent-calculus formulations of these logics, and we highlight some reasons why these logics may be interesting in their own right. (shrink)

Emerging action perspectives on psychopathology depict individuals as actively shaping those environmental conditions that then impact on their risk for psychopathology, resilience in the face of it, and successful recovery from it. This view, although having important implications for research and clinical practice, has yet to be articulated in terms of its underlying philosophical framework. To begin to address this challenge, we situate action theory in the context of the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, who, in their seemingly anti-psychiatric series (...) entitled Capitalism and Schizophrenia, argue for the central role of human agency as a fundamentally active force in determining subjective life. Within this context, they propose an alternative approach to the current deficit focus of much psychopathology research, replacing the notion of deficit with a fundamentally productive notion of desire (what they call “desiring-production”). After our exposition of this philosophical perspective on human agency, implications of this approach for action-informed research and clinical practice are discussed. (shrink)

An ideal vision model accounts for behavior and neurophysiology in both naturalistic conditions and designed lab experiments. Unlike psychological theories, artificial neural networks (ANNs) actually perform visual tasks and generate testable predictions for arbitrary inputs. These advantages enable ANNs to engage the entire spectrum of the evidence. Failures of particular models drive progress in a vibrant ANN research program of human vision.

Les auteures proposent tout au long de l’article une analyse des défis traversés par la femme au sein du couple lors de l’arrivée d’un enfant sur le plan de l’identité professionnelle. L’article se centre sur les remaniements en termes d’investissement lors de l’accueil du premier enfant et la difficile conciliation entre vie professionnelle, vie de couple, vie parentale. La société contemporaine s’éloigne des modèles anciens, engendrant des changements pour la femme et par voie de conséquence pour l’homme également. Quels remaniements (...) identitaires s’opèrent? Les problématiques individuelles de la femme trouvent-elles un écho dans le couple? Le choix de l’axe de l’identité a été fait pour tenter de répondre à ces problématiques. Les auteures s’appuient sur leur pratique de psychologues et proposent une vignette clinique pour illustrer leur propos. Une grille de lecture des problématiques identitaires est proposée s’appuyant sur la théorie de Johann Jung (2015), centrée sur quatre axes majeurs : le négatif, la réflexivité, la continuité/discontinuité et la paradoxalité. (shrink)

There is a pervasive view that inference—as opposed, notably, to a grasp of objects—is an intralinguistic process that does not draw on extralinguistic resources. The present paper aims to show that this dichotomy between inferring and grasping objects can be resisted. Specifically, I offer an alternative view: a phenomenological account according to which our most basic inferences draw on our grasp of objects. I motivate this account on the grounds that, although it is restricted to such basic inferences, it has (...) significant implications for the general question of whether inference involves taking one's premises to support one's conclusion. The proposed account implies that basic inferences need not involve corresponding “takings,” (even though such inferences involve conceptual content), but it leaves open the possibility that non-basic inferences do involve corresponding “takings,” while relying on basic inferences. It will turn out that such a disjunctive view, according to which non-basic reasoning is somewhat parasitic on basic reasoning, manages to avoid many of the problems with which the literature on the “taking condition” deals. (shrink)

Logical pluralists are committed to the idea of a neutral metalanguage, which serves as a framework for debates in logic. Two versions of this neutrality can be found in the literature: an agreed upon collection of inferences, and a metalanguage that is neutral as such. I discuss both versions and show that they are not immune to Quinean criticism, which builds on the notion of meaning. In particular, I show that the first version of neutrality is sub-optimal, and hard to (...) reconcile with the theories of meaning for logical constants, and the second version collapses mathematically, if rival logics, as object languages, are treated with charity in the metalanguage. I substantiate by proving a collapse theorem that generalizes familiar results. Thus, the existence of a neutral metalanguage cannot be taken for granted, and meaning-invariant logical pluralism might turn out to be dubious. (shrink)

Ferritins (FTs) are iron storage proteins that are involved in managing iron‐oxygen balance. In our work, we present a hypothesis on the putative effect of geological changes that have affected the evolution and radiation of ferritin proteins. Based on sequence analysis and phylogeny reconstruction, we hypothesize that two significant factors have been involved in the evolution of ferritin proteins: fluctuations of atmospheric oxygen concentrations, altering redox potential, and changing availability of water rich in bioavailable ferric ions.Fish, ancient amphibians, reptiles, and (...) placental mammals developed the broadest repertoire of singular FTs, attributable to embryonic growth in aquatic environments containing low oxygen levels and abundant forms of soluble iron. In contrast, oviparous land vertebrates, like reptiles and birds, that have developed in high oxygen levels and limited levels of environmental Fe2+ exhibit a lower diversity of singular FTs, but display a broad repertoire of subfamilies, particularly notable in early reptiles. (shrink)

Info-metrics is a framework for rational inference based on insufficient information. The complete info-metric framework, accompanied with many interdisciplinary examples and case studies, as well as graphical representations of the theory appear in the new book “Foundations of Info-Metrics: Modeling, Inference and Imperfect Information,” Oxford University Press, 2018. In this commentary, I describe that framework in general terms, demonstrate some of the ideas via simple examples, and provide arguments for using it to transform information into useful knowledge.

This book is in fact a kind of mosaic, composed from both a concluding act and an act of commencement.

Erdelyi's two key tenets – that repression may be conscious (“suppression”) and that it is context-sensitive – resonate well with findings on unipolar depression. Drawing from this field, I argue that (1) “oppression,” namely, pressure from significant others to refrain from attending to certain mental contents, influences individuals' repression/suppression; and that, (2) individuals actively create the very contexts that facilitate their repression/suppression.

ArgumentThis article describes how science and law were called upon (and failed) to resolve a controversy that created a painful rift between the Israeli State and some of its elite soldiers. The controversy, which came to be known as “the Kishon affair,” erupted in 2000, when veterans of an elite and secretive unit in the Israeli navy claimed that pollution in the Kishon River where they had trained and dived during their military service had been the cause of a rash (...) of cancers. The veterans demanded that the Ministry of Defense take responsibility for their illnesses, finance their medical treatment, and support their families if they die. The military denied the causal connection between the polluted river and the veterans’ cancers and rejected their demands. The dispute quickly escalated into a bitter public controversy, and a high-rank commission comprised of one of Israel's top jurists and two prominent scientists was called upon to study the disputed causal relation and reveal its true nature. However, after nearly three years of intense inquiry the jurist and the scientists reached opposing conclusions: the jurist found a causal connection while the scientists rejected it. (shrink)

Today we face the consequences of ‗God's death‘, or falling out of heaven, and with him the collapse of many ideologies and values. We witness the disintegration of the Other, the dissolution of prohibition, and the confusion and angst it creates. Also we witness a growing movement back to dogmatic religion and the emergence of persecuting fathers or small Gods: like the rise of totalitarianism of the laws of the market and rating, and the compulsion to enjoy. Is there another (...) alternative? Can psychoanalysis deal with these changes in new ways? This paper addresses these issues through clinical observations which show the tangent points of psychoanalysis, and spiritual and religious concepts. Examples include two cases of orthodox Jews, a man and a woman who obeyed the ceremonial aspects of religion to the letter; but there was no presence of god or spiritual experience whatsoever in their discourse. Therefore, they were struggling with broken identity, suffering and cynicism, and lost their defined place in the world. Two others: secular, atheistic man and woman discovered god and its representatives and found a new "name of the father". (shrink)