This paper argues that the dichotomy between individuals, as bearers of unique and freely chosen identities, and the masses, as the large numbers of others who are conforming and uncritical, should be understood as a constructed dichotomy. This dichotomy is both supported and dismantled in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Michel Foucault. Each of these thinkers reinforced the idea that there exist conforming and threatening masses from which individuals should separate themselves. And yet by theorizing the limitations (...) and contextual nature of individual identity, they have also provided the foundations for revealing the dichotomy as illusory as well as problematic for reasoned thought and politics. The significance of this argument is that the fear of sameness and conformity within modern mass society creates a serious obstacle to broad based and democratic political engagement among people. (shrink)

Following the success of editions one and two, this revised, updated and extended edition of _Social Skills in Interpersonal Communication_ will continue as the core textbook for students of interpersonal communication. The professional groups for whom these skills are most important include counsellors, psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, teachers, occupational and speech therapists, physioptherapists and industrial personnel. New chapters in the third edition include the increasingly popular area of interpersonal influence and there is a chapter on the theoretical basis (...) of the authors' approach. (shrink)

This study investigated the effects of music therapy and pictorial illustration on the attention span of children with mild intellectual difficulties. A pre-test, post-test and control group quasi-experimental research design was used with a sample of children diagnosed with mild intellectual disability from three special schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. Fifty children were randomly selected and assigned to one of three groups: music therapy, pictorial illustration, or control. Twenty-four sessions of music therapy and pictorial illustration classes were held with the experimental (...) group only. The Moss Attention Rating Scale was used before and after the intervention to collect data on participants’ attention span. Analysis of Covariance indicated that there was a significant statistical difference between pre-test and post-test results of the two groups. The estimated marginal means of post-attention span by treatment indicated that pictorial illustration had the highest post-attention span score, followed by music therapy, while post-attention span score for the control group was the least. Based on the findings, it is recommended that teachers, caregivers, and parents of children with mild intellectual disability adopt pictorial illustration and music therapy as teaching strategies to enhance their attention span. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra has presented an objection to the co-intension problem. According to this objection, the examples of properties often cited to motivate the co-intension problem are actually relational properties, and so turn out not to be co-intensional. In this essay, I want to revisit Rodriguez-Pereyra’s objection and explain why I find it defective.

Histories of Postmodernism reexamines the history of the constellation of ideas and thinkers associated with postmodernism. The increasingly dominant historical narrative depicts a relatively smooth development of ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, through a range of French theorists, most notably Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, to contemporary American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Edward Said, and Judith Butler. Histories of Postmodernism challenges this narrative by highlighting the local contexts of relevant theorists and thus the crucial distinctions that divide (...) successive articulations of the themes and concepts associated with postmodernism. As postmodern ideas traveled from nineteenth-century Germany to mid-twentieth-century France and on to the contemporary United States, so the relevant theorists transformed that heritage within the context of particular intellectual traditions and specific political and aesthetic issues. (shrink)

Pre‐abortion counselling may play a key role in abortion seekers’ understanding of their decision to terminate a pregnancy and the subsequent emotions that they feel. In this paper, we report on a study conducted in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa concerning womxn's experiences of the pre‐abortion counselling offered as part of the implementation of the Choice of Termination Act that governs the provision of legal abortion in the country. Using a narrative‐discursive lens, the analysis revealed four micro‐narratives in (...) which participants appreciated non‐directive and empathic counselling, as well as being provided with information. They also indicated that the counselling was upsetting and hurtful, particularly when providers drew on the awfulisation of abortion discourse to suggest that abortion leads to terrible consequences, and foetal personhood discourse to intimate that terminating the pregnancy is wrong and other alternatives (adoption, parenting) are better. The connection between these broadly positive and negative responses may lie in the dominance of anti‐abortion discourses coupled with the powerful positioning of healthcare providers as experts. The attendant disempowerment of clients within the health clinic setting may constrain pregnant people's ability to question such ‘expert’ information. The implications for feminist client‐centred pre‐abortion counselling are discussed. (shrink)

Ruso i Marks predstavljaju dve paradigmaticne varijante radikalnog suprotstavljanja svetu. Bez sumnje, postoje znacajni momenti konvergencije izmedju ovih mislilaca, primera radi u pogledu podele rada, ili u pogledu samoprinude. Medjutim, nasa je tvrdnja da su uprkos odredjenim tendencijama u strucnoj literaturi divergencije jace nego konvergencije, odnosno, tvrdimo da ovi mislioci predstavljaju dve razlicite varijante radikalnog misljenja. Osnove ovih razlike nailazimo u citanju Rusoa koga opisujemo iz perspektive kolektivne autenticnosti, pravednosti, samoprezentnosti naroda i protesta protiv zavisti. A Marks se ne (...) moze citati iz perspektive krize zbog intenzivirane neuatenticnosti, njegova kritika politicka ekonomije stvara refleksivno polje koje je duboko divergentno u odnosu na Rusoa. (shrink)

Ruso i Marks predstavljaju dve paradigmaticne varijante radikalnog suprotstavljanja svetu. Bez sumnje, postoje znacajni momenti konvergencije izmedju ovih mislilaca, primera radi u pogledu podele rada, ili u pogledu samoprinude. Medjutim, nasa je tvrdnja da su uprkos odredjenim tendencijama u strucnoj literaturi divergencije jace nego konvergencije, odnosno, tvrdimo da ovi mislioci predstavljaju dve razlicite varijante radikalnog misljenja. Osnove ovih razlike nailazimo u citanju Rusoa koga opisujemo iz perspektive kolektivne autenticnosti, pravednosti, samoprezentnosti naroda i protesta protiv zavisti. A Marks se ne (...) moze citati iz perspektive krize zbog intenzivirane neuatenticnosti, njegova kritika politicka ekonomije stvara refleksivno polje koje je duboko divergentno u odnosu na Rusoa. (shrink)