A major contention of our bookHellenism in the Eastwas that the most profitable way for making progress in understanding the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires was to try to evaluate, sensitively, the very disparate types of evidence within their own social and cultural contexts, however difficult this might be in practice. In the case of the Antiochus I cylinder we are confronted by an inscribed object whose significance lies as much in its physical form as in the content of the text (...) it bears. These aspects are inextricably intertwined as part of a tradition specific to Mesopotamian culture—object and text combined are the physical representation of a major, longstanding, sociopolitical institution for which a mass of earlier evidence exists. It is all too understandable that Greco-Roman scholars, who have been the primary students of the hellenistic world, should find it hard to know how to approach such material emanating from an unfamiliar cultural milieu. Yet, for once, this text isnotfragmentary—it is a long, well-preserved document, easy to read and readily accessible in translation which in itself demonstrates an acknowledgment by hellenistic historians of the potential importance of this non-Greek text for understanding Seleucid history. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume have approached the problem of characterizing and classifying emotions from the perspectives of neurophysiology, psychology, and ...

The philosopher must inform himself of the relevant empirical investigation to arrive at a definition, and the scientist cannot afford to be naive about the..

La pensée de la différence de Luisa Muraro - philosophe italienne, membre de la librairie des femmes de Milan - déjà présentée dans un précédent numéro de CLIO (n° 12) mérite ici d’être redécouverte à travers cette oeuvre singulière qu’est L’ordre symbolique de la mère. Traduit de l’italien, cet ouvrage est original d’un double point de vue. Sa structure, tout d’abord. En effet, aux six chapitres répondent six contre-chants par lesquels l’auteure dévoile ses inspirations, précise ses concepts...

Students of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and literature will welcome this collection of original essays on self-deception and related phenomena such as wishful thinking, bad faith, and false consciousness. The book has six sections, each exploring self-deception and related phenomena from a different perspective.

Background The often poor prognosis associated with cancer necessitates empowering patients to express their care preferences. Yet, the prevalence of Advance Directives (AD) among oncology patients remains low. This study investigated oncologists' perspectives on the interests and challenges associated with implementing AD. Methods A French national online survey targeting hospital-based oncologists explored five areas: AD information, writing support, AD usage, personal perceptions of AD's importance, and respondent's profile. The primary outcome was to assess how frequently oncologists provide patients with information (...) about AD in daily clinical practice. Additionally, we examined factors related to delivering information on AD. Results Of the 410 oncologists (50%) who responded to the survey, 75% (n = 308) deemed AD relevant. While 36% (n = 149) regularly inform patients about AD, 25% (n = 102) remain skeptical about AD. Among the respondents who do not consistently discuss AD, the most common reason given is the belief that AD may induce anxiety (n = 211/353; 60%). Of all respondents, 90% (n = 367) believe patients require specific information to draft relevant AD. Physicians with experience in palliative care were more likely to discuss AD (43% vs 32.3%, p = 0.027). Previous experience in critical care was associated with higher levels of distrust towards AD (31.5% vs 18.8%, p = 0.003), and 68.5% (n = 281) of the respondents expressed that designating a “person of trust” would be more appropriate than utilizing AD. Conclusion Despite the perceived relevance of AD, only a third of oncologists regularly apprise their patients about them. Significant uncertainty persists about the safety and relevance of AD. (shrink)

A decision under ‘complete uncertainty’ is one where the decision maker knows the set of possible outcomes for each decision, but cannot assign probabilities to those outcomes. This way, the problem of ranking decisions is reduced to a problem of ranking sets of outcomes. All rankings that have emerged in the literature in this domain imply transitivity. In the current study, transitivity is subjected to an empirical evaluation in two experiments, where subjects are asked to choose between sets of monetary (...) consequences. After analysis with a Bayes Factor, very few violations of transitivity were found. It can be concluded that transitivity seems a plausible condition for the ranking of sets of monetary consequences. (shrink)

Change is inevitable, and increasingly rapid and continuous in healthcare as organizations strive to adapt, improve and innovate. Organizational change challenges healthcare providers because it restructures how and when patient care delivery is provided, changing ways in which nurses must carry out their work. The aim of this doctoral study was to explore frontline nurses’ experiences of living with rapid and continuous organizational change. A critical hermeneutic approach was utilized. Participants described feeling voiceless, powerless and apolitical amidst rapid and continuous (...) organizational changes which fuelled apathy, cynicism and disengagement from the organization. However, critical analysis of the data showed that nurses actively engaged with power, voice and politics through resistant and transgressive behaviours in micro‐ethical moments of practice. There is a need to reconceptualize the concepts of voice, power and politics in nursing as there is dissonance between nurses’ beliefs about these concepts and what they are enacting in practice. Recognizing their enactment of power, voice and political agency at the micro‐level may empower nurses. Empowerment would mitigate the high levels of reports of powerlessness experienced in practice during organizational changes. (shrink)

Flow describes a state of intense experiential involvement in an activity that is defined in terms of nine dimensions. Despite increased interest in understanding the flow experience of musicians in recent years, knowledge of how characteristics of the musician and of the music performance context affect the flow experience at the dimension level is lacking. In this study, we aimed to investigate how musicians’ general music performance anxiety level and the presence of an audience influence the nine flow dimensions. The (...) participants were 121 university music students who performed solo a music piece once by themselves and once in front of an audience. Their general MPA level was measured with an adapted version of the STAI and ranged from 27 to 76. The level of the nine flow dimensions was assessed with the Flow State Scale-2 after each performance. The levels of “concentration on task at hand,” “sense of control,” and “autotelic experience” decreased significantly with increasing general MPA level. The levels of “unambiguous feedback” and “loss of self-consciousness” decreased significantly with increasing general MPA level during the public performance only. The level of “sense of control” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance across participants. The level of “unambiguous feedback” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance for participants with a general MPA level higher than 47. The level of “loss of self-consciousness” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance for participants with a general MPA level higher than 32. In contrast, the general MPA level and the audience did not significantly affect the levels of “challenge-skill balance,” “clear goals,” and “action-awareness merging.” These results show that the effects of general MPA level and audience vary greatly across flow state dimensions. We conclude that musicians’ flow state should be analyzed at the dimension level rather than as a global score. We discuss how our findings could inform the development and implementation of interventions. (shrink)

Courage is dangerous. If it is defined in traditional ways, as a set of dispositions to overcome fear, to oppose obstacles, to perform difficult or dangerous actions, its claim to be a virtue is questionable. Unlike the virtue of justice, or a sense of proportion, traditional courage does not itself determine what is to be done, let alone assure that it is worth doing. If we retain the traditional conception of courage and its military connotations–overcoming and combat–we should be suspicious (...) of it. Instead of automatically classifying it as a virtue, attempting to develop and exercise it, we should become alert to its dangers. And yet and yet. There is an aspect of traditional courage that serves us: we require the capacities and traits that enable us to persist in acting well under stress, to endure hardships when following our judgments about what is best is difficult or dangerous. If courage is checked, redefined as the virtue that enables virtue–the various sets of dispositions, whatever they may be, that make us resolute in worthy, difficult action–then we need not fear the dangers of courage. We need rather to reform it by diversifying it, as a heterogeneous variety of traits that enable us to act well under stress, against the natural movements of self-protection. (shrink)

During the period from Descartes to Rousseau, the mind changed. Its domain was redefined; its activities were redescribed; and its various powers were redistributed. Once a part of cosmic Nous, its various functions delimited by its embodied condition, the individual mind now becomes a field of forces with desires impinging on one another, their forces resolved according to their strengths and directions. Of course since there is no such thing as The Mind Itself, it was not the mind that changed. (...) Conceptions of the mind changed. Yet even to say this is misleading, because it suggests that somewhere out there in nowhere there is Nous, Psyche, Soul or Mind, the true but opaque object of all these conceptions. But of course there is no Mind in the realm of things in themselves, waiting for us to see it truly, like a China of the noumenal world, amused that our various conceptions reveal as much about ourselves as about it. (shrink)

Since many varieties of self-deception are ineradicable and useful, it would be wise to be ambivalent about at least some of its forms.1 It is open-eyed ambivalence that acknowledges its own dualities rather than ordinary shifty vacillation that we need. To be sure, self-deception remains dangerous: sensible ambivalence should not relax vigilance against pretence and falsity, combating irrationality and obfuscation wherever they occur.

Many have said, and I think some have shown, that it is irrational to fear death. The extinction of what is essential to the self—whether it be biological death or the permanent cessation of consciousness—cannot by definition be experienced by oneself as a loss or as a harm.

We consider first order modal logic C firstly defined by Carnap in “Meaning and Necessity” [1]. We prove elimination of nested modalities for this logic, which gives additionally the Skolem-Löwenheim theorem for C. We also evaluate the degree of unsolvability for C, by showing that it is exactly 0′. We compare this logic with the logics of Henkin quantifiers, Σ11 logic, and SO. We also shortly discuss properties of the logic C in finite models.

The harvest and the pigeons. A note on the summit course of the pillar of Prusias at Delphi The remains of the pillar of Prusias, next to the temple of Apollon at Delphi, have generated much comment. Indeed, the course that supported the equestrian statue of the king of Bithynia presents 112 mortises, above and beyond the attachment holes of the statue itself. Until the present, it has been thought that these cavities served to attach vegetal elements, ears of corn (...) reaped by a laborer or, after the identification of the base as belonging to the pillar of Prusias, a field of corn signifying the beneficence of the king. A trail of textual and archaeological indications prompts a different interpretation for this enigmatic arrangement. The mortises would have served the insertion of bronze points (obeloi or meniskoi) forming a system of protection against defacement by birds, as is occasionally the case in sculpture and in temple architecture. (shrink)

L’étude du portique de Delphes attribué initialement aux Étoliens a été entreprise par A. Perrier en 2007 et les campagnes de relevés de terrain, commencées à la fin de l’année 2010 avec J.‑J. Malmary (architecte) et L. Fadin (topographe), se sont achevées en 2013 par des vérifications sur le monument, les derniers relevés ayant été mis au net en 2014. Un mémoire sur l’histoire, l’architecture et la topographie du portique et de sa terrasse a été déposé à l’Académie des inscriptions (...) et belles... (shrink)

There is more akrasia than meets the eye: it can occur in speech and perception, cognitively and emotionally as well as between decision and action. The lures of akrasia are the same as those that are exercised in ordinary psychological and cognitive inferential contexts. But because it is over-determined and because it occurs in opaque intentional contexts, its attribution remains highly fallible.