This article contributes empirical findings and sociological theoretical perspectives to discussions of the role of community lay health workers, including in improving the health of individuals and communities. We focus on the role of the Health Trainer (HT), at its inception described as one of the most innovative developments in UK Public Health policy. As lay health workers, HTs are tasked with reducing health inequalities in disadvantaged communities by supporting clients to engage in healthier (...) lifestyles. HTs are currently sociologically under-researched, particularly in relation to occupational identity work, and the boundary work undertaken inter-occupationally with other health workers. To address this research lacuna, a qualitative study was undertaken with 25 HTs based in the Midlands region of the UK. In theorising our findings, we employ a novel combination of symbolic interactionist conceptualisation of 1) identity work, and of 2) boundary work. The article advances knowledge in the field of health and exercise by investigating and theorising how HTs construct, work at, manage, and communicate about professional/occupational boundaries, in order to provide personalised support to their clients in achieving and sustaining healthy behaviour change within the constraints of clients’ lifeworlds. (shrink)

In this article I discuss some of the findings of an on-going ethnographic study of two once-weekly circuit training classes held in one of the growing number of private health and fitness clubs. The article has four aims. First, to demonstrate and explore the active role of the body in a central practice of body modification/maintenance: i.e. circuit training. Second, to demonstrate that circuit training is a social structure which both shapes the activity of the agent and is shaped (...) by that (shaped) agent. I aim also to explore this structuration process. Third, to draw out a number of aspects of the sociality of body maintenance/modification. Training, I argue, is a form of symbolic interaction, localized within specific and durable social networks. The final aim of the article is to weave these various claims together into a coherent overall account of circuit training as a form of body modification. As an investigation of the embodied nature of practices of body maintenance and the active role of social agents in relation to these practices the article rejoins an important strand of sociological investigations of ‘the body’. At the same time, however, the article seeks to challenge those approaches, often rooted in Foucauldian analysis, which portray the body as ‘docile’ in relation to body maintenance. Foucauldian inspired studies often reify practices of modification as ‘technologies’ or ‘apparatuses’, ignoring the active role of embodied agents in these practices and eliding the difference between texts which prescribe ways of acting and the more messy and complex reality of those ways of acting. (shrink)

Health professionals increasingly face patients with complex health problems and this pressurizes them to cooperate. The authors have analyzed how the complexity of health care problems relates to two types of cooperation: consultation and multidisciplinary teamwork (MTW). Moreover, they have analyzed the impact of these two types of cooperation on perceived professional autonomy. Two teams were studied, one team dealing with geriatric patients and another treating oncology patients. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews, studied written documents, held informal (...) discussions and observed the teams at work. Consultation was most likely to take place when a patient had multiple problems. However, if these problems were interrelated, i.e. the solution for one problem interfered with solving another, then MTW was favored. The same was true when the available information was equivocal such that there were conflicting interpretations of a problem. How the professionals perceived the relationship between complexity and the need to cooperate depended on their expertise, their occupational background, and their work orientation. Consultation did not affect the professional autonomy of the health care professionals. MTW however did decrease the perceived level of professional autonomy. The extent to which this occurred seemed to depend on the quality of the interpersonal relations within the team. The findings can help in selecting the most appropriate and efficient type of cooperation based on the complexity of a patient’s problems. They can also help team leaders to stimulate reflection and feedback processes, and medical trainers to develop competencies among students related to such teamwork behaviors. (shrink)

There is considerable support for the idea that an atmosphere of safety can foster learning in groups, especially during ethics training courses. However, the question how safety dynamics works during ethics courses is still understudied. This article aims to investigate safety dynamics by examining a critical incident during a military ethics train-the trainer course during which safety was threatened. We examine this incident by means of a four-factor analysis model from the field of Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI). We show that during (...) ethics training courses a safety paradox can occur, involving a tension between honesty and openness to other perspectives and values. Finally, we discuss how trainers can foster safety during ethics training. (shrink)

After acquiring knowledge of the neuroscience of learning, memory, stress and emotions, teachers incorporate more cognitive engagement and student-centered practices into their lessons. However, the role understanding neuroscience plays in teachers own affective and motivational competencies has not yet been investigated. The goal of this study was to investigate how learning neuroscience effected teachers’ self-efficacy, beliefs in their ability to teach effectively, self-responsibility and other components of teacher motivation. A pilot training-of-trainers program was designed and delivered in Liberia combining (...) basic neuroscience with information on social, emotional, behavioral and mental health issues faced by students. Tier I of the professional development was a 2 weeks workshop led by a visiting neuroscientist. A subset of the 24 Tier I secondary science teachers formed a Leadership Team who adapted the content to the Liberian context and subsequently led additional workshops and follow-up sessions for the Tier II secondary science teachers. Science teachers in both tiers completed the affective-motivational scales from the internationally vetted, multiscale Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey from the OECD. Tier II teachers completed the survey in a pre-post-delayed post design. Tier I teachers completed the survey after the workshop with their attitudes at that time and separately with retrospective projections of their pre-workshop attitudes. Ten of the 92 Tier II teachers participated in structured interviews at follow-up. Statistical analysis of survey data demonstrated improved teacher self-efficacy, self-responsibility for student outcomes, and motivation to teach. Qualitatively, teachers expressed more confidence in their ability to motivate students, engage them through active learning, and manage the class through positive rather than negative reinforcement. Teachers’ own self-regulation improved as they made efforts to build supporting relationships with students. Together, these results demonstrated that (i) teacher affective-motivational attitudes can be altered with professional development, (ii) basic neuroscience, as knowledge of how students learn, can improve teacher competency, and (iii) a training-of-trainers model can be effective in a low and middle income country for disseminating neuroscience knowledge, increasing teachers’ knowledge of students’ social and emotional needs, and promoting educational improvement. (shrink)

The rapidly expanding degrowth literature has focused predominantly on the case for degrowth and its goals and much less attention has been given to how it might be achieved. The following discussion is not concerned to review the current state of the discussion and refers to it only in order to develop a case for a particular approach to degrowth strategy, that is, one deriving from the simpler way perspective on the global predicament. This focuses on the alarming and poorly (...) recognised extent to which global sustainability limits have been exceeded. When this is understood it is clear that extremely radical solutions must be sought. There has to be transition to far simpler lifestyles and systems. This requires abandoning various fundamental structures and taken-for-granted assumptions and ways. Thus it will be argued that numerous degrowth strategies are inappropriate, including attempting to reform existing governmental policies and adopting eco-socialist goals and means. This perspective on the situation has coercive implications for viable strategy. One major implication of the simpler way perspective is that ends and means must be anarchist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 81 CAUSATION: A PREMATURELY DEPOSED MONARCH? Chad Trainer 1006 Davids Run Phoenixville, pa 19460, usa stratof{[email protected] Huw Price and Richard Corry, eds. Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited. Oxford: Clarendon P.; New York: Oxford U. P., 2007. Pp. x, 403. isbn: 978-0-19-927819-0. £58 (hb); £19.99 (pb.). us$35 (pb). In 1911 the Aristotelian Society elected Bertrand Russell (...) its president, and in November of 1912 Russell’s presidential address to the Society was “On the Notion of Cause”, which, in addition to being published in the Society’s Proceedings, was later included in Russell’s book Mysticism and Logic. Russell’s address to the Aristotelian Society occurred during an interesting, brief era in the history of physics. This was a stage after the science of gravitational astronomy had beneWted from the use of diTerential equations but before the British physics community was aware of the German physicists’ advances. Less than three years after Russell delivered “On the Notion of Cause”, Einstein revolutionized the Weld of gravitational astronomy; and the quantum physicists were to eventually unearth phenomena that proved to be especially recalcitrant to comprehensive mathematical analysis. At the time of “On the Notion of Cause”, though, physics was understood as providing a thorough account of all the phenomena within its domain. In this address, Russell speaks of how Certain diTerential equations can be found, which hold at every instant for every particle of the system, and which, given the conWguration and velocities at one instant, or the conWgurations at two instants, render the conWguration at any other earlier or later instant theoretically calculable. … This statement holds throughout physics, and not only in the special case of gravitation. But there is nothing that could be properly called “cause” and nothing that could be properly called “eVect” in such a system.… [T]here is merely a formula. (ML, p. 194, Papers 6: 202; my emphasis) Russell further remarked: All philosophers, of every school, imagine that causation is one of the fundamental axioms or postulates of science, yet, oddly enough, in advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word ‘cause’ never occurs…. To me it seems that … the reason September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 82 Reviews why physics has ceased to look for causes is that, in fact, there are no such things. The law of causality, … like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm. (ML, p. 180; Papers 6: 193). What Russell has in mind here when saying “in advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word ‘cause’ never occurs” is that it is rash to infer from the observation of particular uniformities that there necessarily is a legitimate apriori category of causality (ML, p. 205; Papers 6: 209). Rather, “the law of causality, as usually stated by philosophers, is false, and is not employed in science” (ML, p. 207; Papersz 6: 210). Huw Price and Richard Corry’s Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisitedz features thirteen chapters from diTerent contributors (except for Huw Price who authors one and co-authors another) who address diTerent aspects of this matter. Price and Corry explain: One key theme of the volume turns on the possibility that in presenting philosophy with a stark choice between Wnding causation in physics and rejecting it altogether, Russell missed an important range of intermediate views. In particular, he missed what, by a natural extension of his own constitutional analogy, we may call the republican option. In the political case, rejecting the view that political authority is vested in our rulers by God leaves us with two choices: we may reject the notion of political authority altogether ; or we may regard it, with republicans, as invested in our rulers by us. Arguably, the republican option exists in metaphysics, too. Causal republicanism is thus the view that although the notion of causation is useful, perhaps indispensable, in our dealings with... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd 168 Reviews A CONSCIENCE IN ACTION Chad Trainer 1006 Davids Run Phoenixville, pa 19460, usa [email protected] Reiner Braun, Robert Hinde, David Krieger, Harold Kroto, and Sally Milne, eds. Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-vch Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2007. Pp. xiv, 355. isbn 978-3-527-40690-6 (hb). us$60. People who detest barbarism start to act in a barbaric way. (...) This is the insanity of war. (zJoseph Rotblat, p. 168) Bertrand Russell’s famous 1954 bbc broadcast “Man’s Peril” concerned humanity ’s fate in an era of nuclear weaponry. Soon after this event, it occurred to Russell that a further course of action would be to persuade prominent scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain to sign a statement emphasizing the importance of joint action in addressing the spectre of a world in which there was availability of and even will to use nuclear armaments. He sent a draft of his petition to Albert Einstein for approval. Shortly thereafter, on a Xight from Rome to Paris, Russell heard the pilot’s announcement that Einstein had February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd Reviews 169 1 Rotblat was the recipient of the 1983 Bertrand Russell Society Award (McCoy, Visionary for Peace, p. 205, and Rotblat’s c.v., ibid., p. 346). died. Upon arriving at his Paris hotel, Russell found a letter from Einstein agreeing to sign Russell’s statement. In his autobiography, Russell reports: “This was one of the last acts of his [Einstein’s] public life.” Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005)1 met Russell in 1954 at a dinner-discussion given by the bbc on the results of the Bikini test and the future of nuclear weapons. Rotblat went on to become an adviser to Russell on the details of nuclear weapon science and was subsequently recruited by the latter to sign the same document Einstein had. Rotblat chaired the press conference on 9 July 1955 at Caxton Hall in London, presenting the world with what became known as the Russell– Einstein Manifesto. Rotblat was the Manifesto’s youngest and, until his death in 2005, the last surviving signatory. Although Rotblat was not a Nobel Laureate, Russell predicted, correctly, that he would eventually become one. In reference to Rotblat and his activities, Russell remarked: He can have few rivals in the courage and integrity and complete self-abnegation with which he has given up his own career (in which, however, he still remains eminent) to devote himself to combatting the nuclear peril as well as other, allied evils. If ever these evils are eradicated and international aTairs are straightened out, his name should stand very high indeed among the heroes. (Auto. 3: 77–8) Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace is a compilation of tributes to the late Joseph Rotblat published by Wiley-vch. It features no less than 45 contributors. The volume is a celebration of one of the truly great activists for nuclear disarmament. It also features as an 84-page appendix eight of his most historic writings. There is also a new photograph of Russell (p. 89). As justly famous as Rotblat is for his eTorts to prevent nuclear war, though, his distinction in this arena tends to eclipse his other impressive achievements, most notably those in nuclear and medical physics. Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace is valuable for the attention it draws to both the more and less famous aspects of his legacy. In the present reviewer’s opinion, the book’s reminiscences have some unnecessary overlap and the editors could perhaps have more strongly encouraged each contributor to further develop instead the distinctivez things they had to say about Rotblat. Somewhat less forgivable, considering the rich details of Rotblat’s life, is the book’s lack of an index. A Polish Jew, Rotblat earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Warsaw. Among the Wrst to conclude in the late 1930s that the huge energy released by Wssion together with neutron multiplication led to the possibility of a chain reaction, Rotblat realized... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviews 91 A SURVEY OF FREE THOUGHT Chad Trainer 1006 Davids Run Phoenixville, pa 19460, usa stratof{[email protected] Paul Edwards. God and the Philosophers. Edited by Timothy J. Madigan. New York: Prometheus Books, 2009. Pp. 330. isbn 978-1-59102-618-1 (hb). us$28.98. zaul Edwards (1923–2004) is most famous as the editor of the magisterial PEncyclopedia of Philosophy. He was one of three coauthors of its lengthy entry on Bertrand Russell. In 1957, (...) Edwards also edited Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. A collection of his writings entitled God and the Philosophersz has been recently published, edited by Tim Madigan. Timothy Madigan is a previous editor of Free Inquiry who would visit Ed­ wards when travelling to New York City and who had the privilege over the years of reading several drafts of God and the Philosophers, which Edwards knew would be his Wnal project (p. 8). Madigan explains: “Never one to hide his own unbelief, Edwards often com­ mented that his two main goals were to demolish the inXuence of Heidegger and keep alive the memory of William Reich, the much-reviled psychoanalyst whose critiques of religion Edwards felt still remained valid” (p. 10). God and the Philosophersz is probably best appreciated as a very readable survey that is basically a patchwork of Edwards’ various musings on some of the West’s more iconoclastic philosophers. The work is not a systematic compendium and is probably of most value to those inclined to free thought and making their ini­ tial forays into the history of philosophy. The order in which Edwards discusses the thinkers is chronological, but his method of selection is idiosyncratic, especially in the earlier chapters. It is un­ clear why medieval Wgures like Maimonides and Aquinas are includedz in this col­ lection and great ancient independent thinkers like Xenophanes of Colophon and Strato of Lampsacus are excludedz. In any case, Edwards nowhere explains his criteria, or method, for selecting the thinkers he discusses. Edwards credits Russell with being “probably the most inXuential unbeliever of the twentieth century” (p. 253). And the personal inXuence of Russell on Ed­ wards is clear from Edwards’ mention that, while he himself was already “mov­ ing in the direction of unbeliefz”, reading three of Russell’s critiques of religion “Wxed me for good” (p. 253). Not only does Edwards devote an entire chapter to Russell but he cites him December 2, 2009 (5:28 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd 92 Reviews throughout the book. In the chapter on Hume, Edwards presents the Natural History of Religion’s observation of “religionists’z” insecurity regarding their own beliefs as corresponding to Russell’s view that “believers hate and persecute their critics because they dimly realize that their own beliefs are myths” (p. 96). Ed­ wards takes both Schopenhauer (p. 179) and Spencer (p. 242) to task for assum­ ing that something has no value if it is not permanent and, on both occasions, credits Russell with having a superior rival view. The one occasion where Russell evidently stuns Edwards as being more in the camp of the believers rather than the non-believers is Russell’s discussion of Spinoza’s equation of a mind conceiving something “under a form” of eternity with that mind being eternal. As Edwards sees it, Russell was “apparently under such a spell of Spinoza that he [Russell] reports this view without one word of dissent. My own dissent is very simple: if consciousness cannot exist without the body, no part of it can survive and be Wlled with ‘eternal thoughts’ of God or Nature or anything else” (p. 37). Perhaps Edwards’ most poignant invocation of Russell is at the close of the chapter on Nietzsche. After detailing the “romantic cult of war” and “transition to modern totalitarianism”asamong Nietzsche’s legacies, Edwards illustrates the moral high ground with which German and Austrian establishmentarians could counter contrarian claims that “God is dead”, whereas “[i]n Anglo-Saxon coun­ tries intelligent adolescents have the great fortune of having Bertrand Russell as their guide to unbelief minus... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 Reviews 187 NUCLEAR WAR AND WORLD CITIZENSHIP Chad Trainer 1006 Davids Run Phoenixville, pa 19460, usa [email protected] Robert Hinde and Joseph Rotblat. War No More: Eliminating Conflict in the Nuclear Age. London and Sterling, Va.: Pluto P., 2003. Pp. x, 228. £40.00; us$50.00; isbn 0745321925 (hb). £11.99; us$17.95 (pb). ast year marked the 50th anniversary of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, Lwhich sought (...) to put the world on guard against the hydrogen bomb’s dangers. The last surviving signatory to the manifesto was Joseph Rotblat, who died on 31 August 2005. In 1995, Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. During World War ii, Joseph Rotblat participated in the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. An Encyclopaedia Britannica article on his Nobel prize explains that “Although he was uncomfortable about participating in the creation of an atomic bomb, Rotblat initially believed that the weapon would be used only to deter a German threat. After learning in 1944 that it would be used to contain the Soviet Union, a World War ii ally, he left the project….” Upon returning to England in 1945, Rotblat left defence work for medical research. He served as founding secretary-general and later as president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which began in 1957 and at which key scientists and others from different countries could confer about the peril of nuclear weapons facing the world. As a medical physicist at London University’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College (1950–76), Rotblat directed attention toward the biological hazards of nuclear radiation and the severity of fallout from atmospheric testing. He worked closely with Russell in the 1950s and early ’60s and still visited him in his last years. (See his “Personal Reminiscences”, Russell, 18 [1998]: 5–24.) The book’s co-author, Robert Hinde, is the author of numerous books and articles in psychology. The book addresses the planet’s current state in terms of weapons of mass destruction. It features many tables and charts on matters ranging from the varying levels of the super-powers’ nuclear warhead stockpiles to the principal nuclear arms control treaties to estimates of military deaths in individual wars during the last 60 years. Since this book is an earnest endeavour to address the issue of weapons of mass destruction, many of its most fundamental prescriptions sound basic, even _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 188 Reviews somewhat banal. To be sure, the authors acknowledge that “Any attempt to discuss ways of preventing war must address very basic issues, and in so doing lays itself open to accusations of mushy idealism” (pp. 214–15). In War No More the authors opt to err in the direction of moral truisms as a small price to pay if there is a chance of contributing to a discussion eventually compelling the world’s political leaders to heed such moral considerations. In the prevention of conflict, “Often the success of such efforts may be unknown to the wider world just because the criterion of success is simply that nothing happens” (p. 198). Hinde and Rotblat urge their readers to understand the absolute need to abolish war if humanity is to endure in this nuclear age. Their position is that “the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. Their enormous destructive power, inflicted on civilians even more than on the military, would make their use unforgiveable” (p. 139). The authors expressly credit Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein with having taken the initiative for international action on this front (p. 189). And as was the view of Russell and Einstein 50 years earlier, Hinde and Rotblat proclaim in their book that “The only solution is international agreement on the total abolition of nuclear weapons” (p. 139). Hinde and Rotblat concede the ease with which people can be pessimistic about the prospects of abolishing war. However, the formidable challenge posed by such a task is deemed “no excuse for inaction”. They cite historic instances in which humanity has... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:72 Reviews RUSSELL VERSUS THE HAPPINESS INDUSTRY Chad Trainer 1006 Davids Run Phoenixville, pa 19460, usa [email protected] Tim Phillips. Bertrand Russell’sThe Conquest of Happiness; a Modern-Day Interpretation of a Self-Help Classic. Oxford: Infinite Ideas, 2010. Pp. 118. 978-1906821 -27-2 (pb). us$11.95. German translation as Bertrand Russells Eroberung des Glücks in a “Business Classics” series (gabal Verlag, 2012). he popular writing Bertrand Russell undertook to make money has long roused (...) the indignation of those interested in his more technical specialized work, and his 1930 The Conquest of Happiness ranks among the more extreme examples of this pot-boiling genre. Ludwig Wittgenstein denounced Russell’s Conquest of Happiness as a “vomitive.” And the best ways of understanding Russell’s own assessments of his book are unclear, owing to the various sentiments his biographers report. According to Ronald Clark, he said: “… The Conquest of Happiness … I am not very proud of”;1 whereas Caroline Moorehead reports “he was later to say that, of all his books, he felt this had done the most good”.2 In his autobiography, Russell allows us how he wrote The Conquest of Happiness at a stage in his life “when I needed much self-command and much that I had learned by painful experience if I was to maintain any endurable level of happiness.”The emotional challenges to which he was subjected at the time he wrote the book “introduced an intolerable tension into every moment of daily life.” Beacon Hill School, which Russell had started with his second wife, Dora, in 1927, was in such dire straits financially by 1930 that Russell was compelled to resort to much popular writing and lecturing in order to remain solvent. In 1930, Dora gave birth to a daughter fathered by the American journalist Grif- fin Barry.This marked the beginning of the end to Russell’s marriage to Dora. Add to the foregoing Russell’s strained relations with Wittgenstein, when the ______ 1 The Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 448. 2 Bertrand Russell, p. 383. q= Reviews 73 former was asked to be one of the examiners for Wittgenstein’s phd at Cambridge. Although the phd was awarded and Wittgenstein secured a grant to conduct research at Trinity College, Cambridge for five years, Russell and Wittgenstein’s interaction at the time resulted in an end to their friendship. In general, however much control Russell may have had over matters at earlier points in his life, 1930 was a time he was largely at the mercy of unstable circumstances.The repose and leisure on which he had depended for his philosophic activity were not then available to him. Personal problems came to the fore and he was more prone to depression than usual. About The Conquest of Happiness, written primarily with the American market in mind, he remarked to the publisher Stanley Unwin: “I think they [Americans] mostly share Al Capone’s ideas of happiness, which are in a somewhat different vein from mine.”The book became a bestseller in America. Tim Phillips writes on business, technology, social change and innovation, and he has published more than a dozen expositions of other famous authors’ works. His book Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness is a faithful tour through this Russell classic. Phillips provides a readable account of the original ’s lucid points. The treatment is certainly not pretentious or obfuscatory, as it abounds with examples of Russell’s points from contemporary pop culture. It features corroborating quotations from other authors and is salted with some results of modern surveys. Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness has good reminders of the differences between the nature of Russell’s times and lifestyle and that of our own, the most notable being the absence during Russell’s day of a happiness industry. Nowadays, we are bombarded with “self-help” books “encouraging us to obsess about ourselves or manipulate others” (p. 9). Moreover, when Russell wrote The Conquest of Happiness, “the idea of an antidepressant pill was as likely as someone walking on the moon and the idea that people could ‘suffer from stress’ was thirty years into the future. For all... (shrink)

Abstract:This article explores why Russell believed Spinoza to be a superior philosopher to Locke. The latter’s empiricism is closer to Russell’s epistemology than the former’s rationalism, and the superiority of the former’s metaphysic is dubious at best. This makes for an intriguing choice. Normative ethics is the most likely basis, but Russell did not believe that this area of inquiry should be considered part of philosophy.

"Russell's Pennsylvania" focuses on Bertrand Russell's days residing in Pennsylvania during the Second World War. It draws from contemporary local newspaper accounts, published memoirs of authors who visited Russell and his family then, as well as reminiscences from people with first-hand accounts who were able to be contacted recently.

This essay examines Perth as portrayed through the lyrics of popular songs written by people who grew up in the city. These lyrics tend to reproduce the dominant myths about the city: that it is isolated, that it is self-satisfied, that little happens there. Perth became the focus of song lyrics during the late 1970s time of punk with titles such as ‘Arsehole of the Universe’ and ‘Perth Is a Culture Shock’. Even the Eurogliders’ 1984 hit, ‘Heaven Must Be There’, (...) is based on a rejection of life in Perth. However, Perth was also home to Dave Warner, whose songs in the 1970s and early 1980s offered vignettes, which is itself a title of one of Warner’s tracks, of the youthful, male suburban experience. The essay goes on to examine songs by the Triffids, Bob Evans, Sleepy Township and the Panda Band. (shrink)

Critics of mass culture often identify 1950s-style status competition as one of the central forces driving consumerism. Thomas Frank has challenged this view, arguing that countercultural rebellion now provides the primary source of consumerism in our society, and that ‘cool’ has become its central ideological expression. This paper provides a rearticulation and defense of Frank's thesis, first identifying consumerism as a type of collective action problem, then showing how the ‘hip consumer’ is one who adopts a free-rider strategy in this (...) context. (shrink)

Metaphors used to describe new technologies mediate public understanding of the innovations. Analyzing the linguistic, rhetorical, and affective aspects of these metaphors opens the range of issues available for bioethical scrutiny and increases public accountability. This article shows how such a multidisciplinary approach can be useful by looking at a set of texts about one issue, the use of a newly developed technique for genetic modification, CRISPRcas9.

The participation of patients in the training of health professionals constitutes a paradigmatic break, not only with regard to what is going on in this particular field but also with regard to what can be observed in all training courses for the helping professions. The purpose of this article is to consider this mobilization of patient trainers both as an actual change and as a potential operator of change. To do this, we will rely on an intervention research (...) aimed at promoting partnership in health and on the functioning and productions of one of the working groups dedicated to the training of health professionals. (shrink)

Creative Ways to Learn Ethics is an accessible, easy-to-read guide that compiles a variety of ethics trainings to help professionals stimulate their minds, relieve stress, and increase engagement and memory retention. The book uses a range of experiential and thought-provoking approaches, including contemplative exercises, expressive arts, games, and media. Each chapter contains objectives, detailed procedures, adaptations for different audiences, and handouts. Trainers, educators, clinicians, and other mental health professionals can use these exercises in various settings and modify them (...) to meet the needs of their clients. (shrink)

Trainers often use information from previous learning sessions to design or redesign a course. Although universities conducted numerous research integrity training in the past decades, information on what works and what does not work in research integrity training are still scattered. The latest meta-reviews offer trainers some information about effective teaching and learning activities. Yet they lack information to determine which activities are plausible for specific target groups and learning outcomes and thus do not support course design decisions (...) in the best possible manner. This article wants to change this status quo and outlines an easy-to-use taxonomy for research integrity training based on Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation to foster mutual exchange and improve research integrity course design. By describing the taxonomy for research integrity training (TRIT) in detail and outlining three European projects, their intended training effects before the project started, their learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and their assessment instruments, this article introduces a unified approach. This article gives practitioners references to identify didactical interrelations and impacts and (knowledge) gaps in how to (re-)design an RI course. The suggested taxonomy is easy to use and enables an increase in tailored and evidence-based (re-)designs of research integrity training. (shrink)

Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) helps researchers understand how cognitive skills and strategies make it possible for people to act effectively and get things done. CTA can yield information people needemployers faced with personnel issues, market researchers who want to understand the thought processes of consumers, trainers and others who design instructional systems, health care professionals who want to apply lessons learned from errors and accidents, systems analysts developing user specifications, and many other professionals. CTA can show what makes (...) the workplace workand what keeps it from working as well as it might.Working Minds is a true handbook, offering a set of tools for doing CTA: methods for collecting data about cognitive processes and events, analyzing them, and communicating them effectively. It covers both the "why" and the "how" of CTA methods, providing examples, guidance, and stories from the authors' own experiences as CTA practitioners. Because effective use of CTA depends on some conceptual grounding in cognitive theory and researchon knowing what a cognitive perspective can offerthe book also offers an overview of current research on cognition.The book provides detailed guidance for planning and carrying out CTA, with chapters on capturing knowledge and capturing the way people reason. It discusses studying cognition in real-world settings and the challenges of rapidly changing technology. And it describes key issues in applying CTA findings in a variety of fields. Working Minds makes the methodology of CTA accessible and the skills involved attainable. (shrink)