In recent decades, psychological research on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions has greatly developed and demonstrated a range of beneficial outcomes in a variety of populations and contexts. Yet, the question of how to foster subjective well-being and happiness remains open. Here, we assessed the effectiveness of an integrated mental training program The Art of Happiness on psychological well-being in a general population. The mental training program was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness. This (...) was achieved by seven modules aimed at cultivating positive cognition strategies and behaviors using both formal and informal practices. The program was conducted over a period of 9 months, also comprising two retreats, one in the middle and one at the end of the course. By using a set of established psychometric tools, we assessed the effects of such a mental training program on several psychological well-being dimensions, taking into account both the longitudinal effects of the course and the short-term effects arising from the intensive retreat experiences. The results showed that several psychological well-being measures gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. This was especially true for life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation, highlighting both short-term and longitudinal effects of the program. In conclusion, these findings suggest the potential of the mental training program, such as The Art of Happiness, for psychological well-being. (shrink)

If a state commits injustice, who is responsible for compensating its victims and safeguarding against future wrongdoing? Do the state’s citizens bear this responsibility? Do they all bear it equally? Avia Pasternak's and Holly Lawford-Smith's recent books address these pressing questions. Each book represents a thought-provoking attempt to derive an account of citizen responsibility for state wrongs from an account of state agency understood as group agency. Though the books demonstrate the promise of this approach to produce action-guiding advice for (...) real policymakers, they also demonstrate its limitations—in particular, its lack of attention to social structures. Here, I argue that Pasternak's and Lawford-Smith's views would be enriched by further engagement with the literature on structural injustice, which takes individuals’ perpetuation of social systems (not their implication in acts of group agency) as a central source of their remedial obligations. Through critical engagement with Pasternak and Lawford-Smith, I illustrate how a structural injustice framework could yield more attractive conclusions than a group agency framework in certain cases, better explain non-culpable forms of citizen responsibility, and allow us to theorize citizen responsibility for state action without making questionable claims about the metaphysics or social ontology of group agency. (shrink)

El desplazamiento del mito de la cultura ofrece alternativas (ciencia, historia, política) que corren el riesgo de reproducir planteamientos irracionales que, en el seno de aquella forma, se encuentran superados. El pensamiento mítico ofrece soluciones novedosas para ciertos problemas actuales.

The work of Sophocles shows the human suffering which might be caused by evil without the presence of guilt. Within the historic confrontation of the Athenian political stage, the presentation of the tragic conflict opposes the illustrated omnipotence: to present that what is divine as incomprehensible is one of the traditional features of Sophocles’ work and his announcement of anti-modernity. “Not-understanding” is the banner of silence when faced with the limit of natural reason. As a response to sophist thought, which (...) replaced the divine paradigm, the preponderance of the gods in the work of Sophocles might be seen as an affirmation. What is characteristic of the traditional restoration proposed by Sophocles is not only the appearance of the Gods in his works, but the particular way in which they reveal themselves. Knowing that what is divine is not characteristic of men because it is not a feature of the former to be understood to a lesser degree than that of its own nature. That is exactly the stage where the struggle between the reality of knowing and the relative appearance of knowing occurs. Bearing this interpretative intention in mind, the aim of the paper is to highlight the way in which evil reveals itself in Oedipus the King, as a device chosen by the gods to trigger the unfolding of the nature of the hero. (shrink)

This chapter investigates the biography of Theodor W. Adorno and assesses his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. Adorno was born in Frankfurt am Main on September 11, 1903. While on vacation in Visp, Switzerland, he died of a heart attack on August 6, 1969. Aesthetic Theory, with Philosophy of New Music at its heart, subsumed the legacy of Adorno's entire philosophy; along with his Negative Dialectics and a planned work on moral philosophy that his early death prevented. Art and philosophy (...) played a central role from his early years onward. In Philosophy of New Music, Adorno refined the theory of musical material. The discussion of Adorno's philosophy of music gradually died down, as interest increasingly turned to engagement with the posthumous Aesthetic Theory. (shrink)

Dispelling the Darkness: A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet, by Donal S. Lopez Jr. and Thupten Jinpa. Harvard University Press, 2017. 320 pp. Hb and e-book. £23.95. ISBN- 13: 9780674659704.

To study the interaction of forces that produce chest wall motion, we propose a model based on the lever system of Hillman and Finucane :951–961, 1987) and introduce some dynamic properties of the respiratory system. The passive elements are considered as elastic compartments linked to the open air via a resistive tube, an image of airways. The respiratory muscles force is applied to both compartments. Parameters of the model are identified in using experimental data of airflow signal measured by pneumotachography (...) and rib cage and abdomen signals measured by respiratory inductive plethysmography on eleven healthy volunteers in five conditions: at rest and with four level of added loads. A breath by breath analysis showed, whatever the individual and the condition are, that there are several breaths on which the airflow simulated by our model is well fitted to the airflow measured by pneumotachography as estimated by a determination coefficient R2 ≥ 0.70. This very simple model may well represent the behaviour of the chest wall and thus may be useful to interpret the relative motion of rib cage and abdomen during quiet breathing. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco developed the idea of “mute behaviours” during his studies on mute law. The notion of “mute behaviours” denotes an action that is able to mould a legal relationship without any use of language. Certainly, this concept may give rise to some doubts in relation to the attribution—to a behaviour qualified as mute—of the capability to affect dynamics involving a plurality of people. Aiming to clarify the idea of “mute behaviours” by this point of view, the authors analysed the (...) semiotic terminology used by Sacco himself to explain this notion and the issue of its silent nature. Therefore, the terms “signifying signs” and “symptoms”, deemed by Sacco—respectively—incompatible and compatible with the theory of mute behaviours were considered. The former term was traced back to the notion of conventional and arbitrary sign, the notion of the latter was reconstructed linking it to the concept of signs based on signification and suggesting a possible framework in view of the idea of “presentative meanings” developed by the philosopher Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue. Clarified this dichotomy by a terminological analysis, the authors noticed—as affirmed by Rodolfo Sacco himself—the impossibility to ascribe the notion of gesture to the mute behaviour’s category, as some exegetes proposed. Consequently to this last remark, the authors tried to analyse the relationship between gestures and “mute behaviours”, identifying the category of “sema-pragmatic acts”, that includes gestures and may be seen as an intermediate phase between “mute behaviours” and legally relevant behaviours operated by speaking. (shrink)

La presencia de Platón y del pensamiento platónico se ha mantenido de manera incesante a lo largo de la historia de la cultura. En esta historia, el siglo XX refleja el rechazo y la aceptación, la recepción, en suma, de un modo inusitado tal vez porque, durante este siglo, la humanidad se vio cara a cara con los infiernos que supo crear: un mundo en ruinas hacía imposible intuir la perfecta quietud de las Formas. La recepción de Platón en el (...) siglo XX bucea en la recepción de Platón en aquel mundo contradictorio: ¿cómo se integra su pensamiento fundacionalmente metafísico con la deconstrucción de la metafísica? ¿Cuáles son los alcances de la crítica que la teoría política hace, desde la época de los totalitarismos, al autor de la República? ¿Qué valor cognoscitivo y pedagógico puede tener en mito platónico para filósofos cristianos que se ocupan del pensamiento platónico? ¿Cómo recibe la poesía hispanoamericana su voz de demiurgo? Estas preguntas, de las que se ofrecen diversas respuestas en este libro, son tratadas con rigor académico y confrontadas doblemente con las fuentes: en primer término, con Platón y luego con quienes son estudiados en el presente volumen, aunque desde ángulos muy diversos: M. Heidegger, H. G. Gadamer, K. Popper, E. Cassirer, L. Marechal. La seguridad del tratamiento metodológico y lingüístico que se refleja en esta obra hace que sea altamente recomendable para alumnos de grado y de posgrado en Filosofía, Teoría Política, Literatura y Humanidades en general. (shrink)

The emotional connotation of words is known to affect word and sentence processing. However, the when and how of the interaction between emotion and grammar are still up for debate. In this behavioural experiment, 35 female university students read noun phrases (NPs) composed by a determiner and a noun in their L1 (Spanish), and were asked to indicate if the NPs were grammatically correct (elmasc camareromasc) or not (*lafem tornillomasc; i.e. a gender agreement task). The type of gender (arbitrary/natural), the (...) emotionality (unpleasant/neutral), and the gender class (feminine/masculine) of the nouns were manipulated. We found an overall grammaticality effect, responses being faster in grammatically correct trials than in incorrect ones. However, the effects of emotionality and gender class varied depending on gender type. For arbitrary gender, the grammaticality effect was greater in feminine nouns than in masculine nouns and independent of emotionality. For natural gender, the grammaticality effect interacted with gender class and emotionality, this effect only emerging in unpleasant stimuli for feminine nouns. Our results reveal that it is possible to find emotional effects at the behavioural level in an intrinsically grammatical task. Yet, these effects depend on gender properties like the type of gender and the gender class. (shrink)

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage vise à montrer que la question de la réflexion et de son éveil au sein de la vision occupe une place centrale dans la pensée de Maurice Merleau-Ponty et apparaît comme la source secrète d'une énigme et d'une interrogation fondamentales, à partir desquelles son oeuvre entière peut être relue et révéler une nouvelle cohérence. Mais qu'il s'agisse de la perception, de l'expression ou de la chair, c'est à chaque fois la question de la conscience et de son éveil (...) réflexif qui est repensée à nouveau frais et relancée comme un nouveau défi. De ce fait, cet ouvrage vise également à faire apparaître la nouvelle signification - ou configuration - que prend le commencement de la réflexion chez Merleau-Ponty, dans le dévoilement progressif d'une seule figure typique, composée par touches successives, à partir des différentes figurations qu'elle revêt dans son oeuvre. Elle trouve à s'incarner dans la figure, hautement évocatrice du peintre qui "pense le pinceau à la main", au moment "où sa vision se fait geste". [Source: 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle AgesMichael CalabreseRhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages, by Rita Copeland; xiv & 295 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, $64.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.In this deeply learned book, Rita Copeland studies the history of rhetoric and grammar and their shifting roles in the history of translation, commentary, and interpretation from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. Copeland examines the ideological (...) nexus of history, authority, and power in which commentary and vernacular translation function. “Vernacular writing,” she says, can “authorize itself by taking over the function of academic discourse” (p. 8). Her book then traces the history of this “authorization” and this “dis-placement” of Latin sources by the increasingly academically privileged vernacular. All in all, Copeland tells the story of how medieval literary culture articulated its translatio studii by confronting and preserving its Classical inheritance and also developing a role for the vernacular as an active, creative agent in the production of authoritative works. [End Page 413]Ultimately “rhetoric” is the star of Copeland’s book, and in essence she is telling its Roman and medieval life stories. By “rhetoric” we are to understand critical academic language that points toward ethics and practical action. Throughout the Middle Ages every modification or appropriation of critical tools expands the role of commentary and adds new forms of interpretive invention to the translation process. As Copeland puts it, “The medieval practice of translation as a form of appropriation and substitution will be conditioned, as in Roman contexts, by rhetorical theories of invention” (p. 36).The hermeneutical costar is grammar, for as part of the complex appropriation of classical practice, medieval readers recoup the “debased” Roman category of grammar, so that by the time of Martianus Capella it can “claim for itself the whole compass of literary activity” (p. 56). As grammar expands its power, so does rhetoric, a civic Roman art which gets “revalued in terms of service to theology” (p. 59). Medieval commentary now “assumes the character of rhetorical performance” (p. 86) and takes on a “primary productive character,” as it “continually refashions the [studied] text for changing conditions of understanding” (p. 64). What is emerging from all these developments is a medieval translation theory—and practice—which is informed by both academic and practical, ethical goals, that is, a hermeneutics forged by the link of grammar and rhetoric.The rest of the book studies the shifting status and the evolving role of the vernacular in this medieval hermeneutical drama. Copeland addresses the Ovide moralisé and the French translations of the Consolatio, and then Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and Gower’s Confessio Amantis. We witness here how vernacular products take on authority by “inventing themselves” through authoritative discourse. In Gower’s Confessio we see the fusion of hermeneutics and rhetoric; the poem uses academic modes of discourse in the service of ethics or action. We thus see that by the late Middle Ages vernacular literature plays an authoritative role in the medieval translatio studii, as Gower seeks to “open the institution of learning to the widest possible audience and thereby empower it as a persuasive tool, leading to knowledge of the good” (p. 220). Overall, Copeland has told the story of the “leveling” of academic and vernacular discourse, so that the later, while not dispelling or overthrowing the former, can claim access to its traditional authority.Copeland’s prose is Latinate, at times pedantic and, at times, just plain Latin; reading the book can be a wearing experience. But it is all part of a history she knows in remarkable detail, a history that lies behind many assumptions we have about medieval ethical poetics. To have presented this history is a major scholarly feat. Copeland allows us to see medieval authors as both products and producers of methods of appropriation, imitation, conquest, and preservation—all strategies for “translating” the past and creating a present that can leave its intellectual mark on the future. One might now want to employ Copeland’s history of classical and medieval hermeneutics as a tool for [End Page 414] examining our own, contemporary academic rhetorics and for analyzing the “state of... (shrink)

Given a space in an elementary submodel M of H, define XM to be X∩M with the topology generated by . It is established, using anti-large-cardinals assumptions, that if XM is compact and its regular open algebra is isomorphic to that of a continuous image of some power of the two-point discrete space, then X=XM. Assuming in addition, the result holds for any compact XM satisfying the countable chain condition.

Microhabitable is a study program resulting from the collaboration between Matadero Madrid, Serpentine Galleries and INLAND--Campo Adentro. It spans a monthly seminar from September to December 2019, a publication, a radio station and a residency program articulated around reflections focused on the scale factor from the fields of art and the politics of ecology.

Questa monografia è uno studio tematico dedicato alla trasmissione e alla ricezione del filosofo presocratico Eraclito di Efeso da parte di Filone di Alessandria, il maggior rappresentante del giudaismo ellenistico. I testi esegetici, filosofici e storico-apologetici di Filone con riferimento allo scritto e alla dottrina eraclitea sono analizzati in modo dettagliato ed esaustivo, prima di essere confrontati con quelli di fonti anteriori e posteriori da un lato, con quelli degli altri filosofi Presocratici dall'altro. Le testimonianze di Filone sono quindi utilizzate (...) per cogliere in modo più preciso il significato originario del discorso filosofico di Eraclito, rispetto alle diverse tradizioni interpretative che si succedono e si intrecciano nel corso della storia della filosofia antica. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo intentará contribuir a la discusión teórica y filosófica política sobre la emancipación y la democracia en base a la producción intelectual reciente de Étienne Balibar y Jacques Rancière. Las nociones con las que ambos autores acompañan la idea de emancipación, por una parte, iluminan sobre otros modos posibles de pensar la política, las luchas y la transformación, y, por otra parte, permiten re-significar la filosofía y la política, así como la inclusión de la igualdad radical entre los (...) seres hablantes en el centro de la disputa teórica y política.This article will attempt to contribute to the theoretical and philosophical political discussion on emancipation and democracy based on the recent intellectual production of Étienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière. The notions with which both authors accompany the idea of emancipation, on the one hand, illuminate on other possible ways of thinking about politics, struggles and transformation, and, on the other hand, allow us to re-signify philosophy and politics, thus as the inclusion of radical equality between speaking beings at the center of the theoretical and political dispute. (shrink)

For decades a debate has played out in the literature about who bioethicists are, what they do, whether they can be considered professionals qua bioethicists, and, if so, what professional responsibilities they are called to uphold. Health care ethics consultants are bioethicists who work in health care settings. They have been seeking guidance documents that speak to their special relationships/duties toward those they serve. By approving a Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Health Care Ethics Consultants, the American Society (...) for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has moved the professionalization debate forward in a significant way. This first code of ethics focuses on individuals who provide health care ethics consultation (HCEC) in clinical settings. The evolution of the code's development, implications for the field of HCEC and bioethics, and considerations for future directions are presented here. (shrink)