Executive functions (EFs) and impulsivity are dimensions of self-regulation that are both related to psychopathology. However, self-report measures of impulsivity and laboratory EF tasks typically display small correlations, and existing research indicates that impulsivity and EFs may tap separate aspects of self-regulation that independently statistically predict psychopathology in adulthood. However, relationships between EFs, impulsivity, and psychopathology may be different in childhood compared to adulthood. Here, we examine whether these patterns hold in the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive (...) Development (ABCD) sample, a national sample of over 11,000 children (including 749 twin pairs) ages 9–10 years. We examine the phenotypic and genetic relationships among latent variables for different components of EFs and multiple facets of impulsivity. Additionally, we assess how EFs and impulsivity relate to composite measures and latent variables of psychopathology derived from parent report. EFs were weakly correlated with impulsivity, and the strength varied by impulsivity facet, emphasizing their separability. We did not identify significant genetic and environmental correlations between EFs and impulsivity. Moreover, controlling for their small relationships with each other, both EFs and some facets of impulsivity statistically predicted an Externalizing factor, attention problems, and social problems, and twin analyses suggested these relationships were genetic in origin. These findings indicate that EFs and impulsivity represent phenotypically and genetically separable aspects of self-regulation that are both transdiagnostic correlates of psychopathology in childhood. (shrink)

Depuis une vingtaine d'annees, on assiste un peu partout a un regain d'interet pour les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon. Que Xenophon ne nous donne pas davantage que Platon un portrait historiquement fiable de Socrate peut etre considere comme un acquis de la critique du XXe siecle. Laissant transparaitre dans son temoignage des options profondement differentes de celles de Platon, Xenophon temoigne par la meme, cependant, des tensions, voire des oppositions qui traversaient le milieu socratique autour du souvenir et de la (...) comprehension de la personne de Socrate: cette seule consideration suffit a faire de Xenophon une source essentielle pour notre connaissance de l'immediat apres Socrate et, par dela, pour notre intelligence de l'histoire de la reception de Socrate dans les siecles ulterieurs. Le colloque dont sont issues les etudes rassemblees dans ce volume, organise a l'Universite de Provence (Aix-Marseille I) du 6 au 9 novembre 2003, s'inscrit dans cette perspective. Plus qu'un bilan de la nouvelle orientation des etudes xenophontiennes, qu'il est encore trop tot pour etablir, on y verra l'illustration de la diversite d'approches dont est susceptible le temoignage de Xenophon sur Socrate. Due a Louis-Andre Dorion, une bibliographie des etudes sur les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon publiees dans le dernier quart de siecle temoigne de la vitalite retrouvee de ce domaine de recherche. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

This study was designed to address the issue of whether there is a general processor for the perception of emotion or whether there are separate processors. We examined the relationships among three channels of emotional communication in 100 healthy right-handed adult males and females. The channels were facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal; both identification and discrimination tasks of emotional perception were utilised. Statistical analyses controlled for nonemotional perceptual factors and subject characteristics (i.e. demographic and general cognitive). For identification, multiple significant correlations (...) were found among the channels. For discrimination, fewer correlations were significant. Overall, these results provide support for the notion of a general processor for emotional perceptual identification in normal adult subjects. (shrink)

Philosophy; philosophical theology; philosophical anthropology; history.

BackgroundThe widespread sharing of biological and biomedical data is recognised as a key element in facilitating translation of scientific discoveries into novel clinical applications and services. At the same time, twenty-first century states are increasingly concerned that this data could also be used for purposes of bioterrorism. There is thus a tension between the desire to promote the sharing of data, as encapsulated by the Open Data movement, and the desire to prevent this data from ‘falling into the wrong hands’ (...) as represented by ‘dual use’ policies. Both frameworks posit a moral duty for life sciences researchers with respect to how they should make their data available. However, Open data and dual use concerns are rarely discussed in concert and their implementation can present scientists with potentially conflicting ethical requirements.DiscussionBoth dual use and Open data policies frame scientific data and data dissemination in particular, though different, ways. As such they contain implicit models for how data is translated. Both approaches are limited by a focus on abstract conceptions of data and data sharing. This works to impede consensus-building between the two ethical frameworks. As an alternative, this paper proposes that an ethics of responsible management of scientific data should be based on a more nuanced understanding of the everyday data practices of life scientists. Responsibility for these ‘micromovements’ of data must consider the needs and duties of scientists as individuals and as collectively-organised groups.SummaryResearchers in the life sciences are faced with conflicting ethical responsibilities to share data as widely as possible, but prevent it being used for bioterrorist purposes. In order to reconcile the responsibilities posed by the Open Data and dual use frameworks, approaches should focus more on the everyday practices of laboratory scientists and less on abstract conceptions of data. (shrink)

Geleitwort von Prof. P. Nicki -- Dr. Hermann Freund im Gespräch mit Prof. Dr. Dr. Hinderk M. Emrich -- Die Angst und der existentielle Sprung -- Die neue Zeit -- Der gedachte Gott -- Wie kommt das Ich zum Du? - Hysterie als Lebensform -- Was heisst, sich entscheiden? - Zur Theologie der Freiheit -- Re-formation der Reformation -- Das metaphysische und zugleich dämonische Wesen des Schlosses in Franz Kafkas Schloss-Roman -- Nachwort von Wolfgang Teichert: Epiphanie oder wo sprechende Philosophie (...) und Theologie aufhören müssen -- Literatur -- Verzeichnis der Mitwirkenden -- Abbildungsverzeichnis. (shrink)

How should we shape the practice of pastoral care, especially in the context of bioethical counseling? Martin Luther grounded it in a mutual dialogue of brethren. Friedrich Schleiermacher transformed this Protestant understanding according to the modern ideals of freedom and responsibility for oneself. In response to the other basic question of pastoral care: What is the human soul?, Sigmund Freud overcame the Platonic model undergirding Schleiermacher's account. Whoever seeks to care for his own soul and the soul of the other (...) should learn from Freud. One of the most fruitful consequences of such study lies in the formation of a mature religiosity. Another such consequence concerns the pastor's aspiring to an attitude of self-control in counseling. Building one's own competence on the experience and the knowledge of Freud can help one counteract the temptation to transfer one's own (unconscious) wishes onto the conversation partner and conversely to ward off transference from the other onto oneself. On the level of ideals and ultimate principles, however, Christian pastors, unlike Freud, will not see fate and the anonymous forces of Eros and Thanatos, as the ultimate last horizons of human self-understanding. Instead, the good news of sinful man's justification by God transcends even the limits of human existence imposed by fate. (shrink)

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), designed by the WHO, attempts to provide a holistic model of functioning and disability by integrating a medical model with a social one. The aim of this article is to analyze the ICF’s claim to holism. The following components of the ICF’s complexity are analyzed: (1) health condition, (2) body functions and structures, (3) activity, (4) participation, (5) environmental factors, (6) personal factors, and (7) health. Although the ICF claims to be (...) holistic, it presupposes a monistic materialistic ontology. We indicate some limitations of this ontology, proposing instead: (a) a pluralistic–holistic ontology (PHO) and (b) a multidimensional view of the human being, with individual and environmental aspects, in relation to three levels of reality implied by the PHO. For the ICF to attain its holistic claim, the interactions between its components should be based on (a) and (b). (shrink)

In this paper, we will explain and analyse a phenomenological distinction between two kinds of actions. The distinction we have in mind is the difference between those actions that actors try, or are satisfied, to carry out, in like situations, ‘in the same way’, and all other actions. We call the first kind ‘mimeomorphic actions’ and the second kind ‘polimorphic actions’. We will define these two kinds of actions, and their species, on the basis of their characteristic intentions and experiences, (...) and thus our inquiry falls broadly into the phenomenology of action. The latter has been defined by D. W. Smith as the “description of the experience of acting, or doing something”. (shrink)

This article presents a critical reevaluation of the thesis—closely associated with H. L. A. Hart, and central to the views of most recent legal philosophers—that the idea of state coercion is not logically essential to the definition of law. The author argues that even laws governing contracts must ultimately be understood as “commands of the sovereign, backed by force.” This follows in part from recognition that the “sovereign,” defined rigorously, at the highest level of abstraction, is that person or entity (...) identified by reference to game theory and the philosophical idea of “convention” as the source of signals with which the subject population has become effectively locked, as a group, into conformity. (shrink)

Medical screening is justified on the strength of the assumption that the earlier disease is detected, the better it is for the patient. On examination, however, the assumption turns out to be severely flawed, and inadequate anyway, since it is not only the patient with whom we should be concerned, but healthy people as well. Instead of making assumptions about the ill, we should prove a test's overall benefit to the individual taking it before we recommend it.

Gareth Evans' proposal, as amended by Steven Neale –that a definite pronoun with a quantifiedantecedent that does not bind it has the sense ofa definite description – has been challenged inthe singular case by appeal to counter-examplesinvolving failure of the uniqueness condition forthe legitimacy of a singular description. Thischallenge is here extended to the plural.Counter-examples are provided by cases in which aplural description `the Fs' does not denote,despite the propriety of the use of `they' or`them' it is to replace, because (...) of failure ofcumulativeness. A noncumulative predicate isnot distributive, and conditions for thelegitimacy of `the Fs' designed to accommodatenondistributive `Fs' are given in the context ofa two sorted theory with generalized quantifiers.Failure of cumulativeness is not to be confusedwith failure of maximality as Neale and othersdefine it. If not all Fs are Gs, `The Fs are Gs'is false; but it does not follow that `the Fs' isillegitimate; and if `Fs' is distributive. it isso only if there are no Fs. These differencesgranted, I give a partial defense of theEvans–Neale proposal from deficiencies in analternative based on the views of P. T.Geach. (shrink)

In this essay I first provide a brief explanation of the principle of double effect (PDE) and the propositions that it entails regarding the distinction betweenintention and foresight (I/F distinction) and the distinction’s relevance to ethical evaluation. Then I address several recent critiques of PDE and the I/F distinctionby influential ethicists including Judith Jarvis Thomson, Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, and Jonathan Bennett. I argue that none of these critiques issuccessful. In the process of refuting the critiques, I also give (...) prima facie reason to believe that the I/F distinction is relevant to evaluation of agents and their actions and that PDE is a defensible ethical principle. (shrink)

Claims regarding collective or group mental states are fairly commonplace: we speak of things like the belief of the Church, the will of the faculty, and the opinion of the Supreme Court, often without considering what such claims really mean and whether they are true in any interesting sense. In this paper I take a threefold approach: first, I articulate several ways in which a group might be said to have beliefs and other mental states. Second, I explore the implications, (...) positive and negative, of these accounts of collective mental states. Third, I give a brief defense of my own view despite its somewhat disturbing implications for our membership in Church, State, and other groups. (shrink)