To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50 mg or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall . Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either partially or (...) totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage. (shrink)

The Hwa Yen school of Mah&āy&āna Buddhism bloomed in China in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. Today many scholars regard its doctrines of Emptiness, Totality, and Mind-Only as the crown of Buddhist thought and as a useful and unique philosophical system and explanation of man, world, and life as intuitively experienced in Zen practice. For the first time in any Western language Garma Chang explains and exemplifies these doctrines with references to both oriental masters and Western philosophers. The (...) Buddha's mystical experience of infinity and totality provides the framework for this objective revelation of the three pervasive and interlocking concepts upon which any study of Mah&āy&āna philosophy must depend. Following an introductory section describing the essential differences between Judeo-Christian and Buddhist philosophy, Professor Chang provides an extensive, expertly developed section on the philosophical foundations of Hwa Yen Buddhism dealing with the core concept of True Voidness, the philosophy of Totality, and the doctrine of Mind-Only. A concluding section includes selections of Hwa Yen readings and biographies of the patriarchs, as well as a glossary and list of Chinese terms. (shrink)

The Hwa Yen school of Mahāyāna Buddhism bloomed in China in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. Today many scholars regard its doctrines of Emptiness, Totality, and Mind-Only as the crown of Buddhist thought and as a useful and unique philosophical system and explanation of man, world, and life as intuitively experienced in Zen practice. For the first time in any Western language Garma Chang explains and exemplifies these doctrines with references to both oriental masters and Western philosophers. The (...) Buddha's mystical experience of infinity and totality provides the framework for this objective revelation of the three pervasive and interlocking concepts upon which any study of Mahāyāna philosophy must depend. Following an introductory section describing the essential differences between Judeo-Christian and Buddhist philosophy, Professor Chang provides an extensive, expertly developed section on the philosophical foundations of Hwa Yen Buddhism dealing with the core concept of True Voidness, the philosophy of Totality, and the doctrine of Mind-Only. A concluding section includes selections of Hwa Yen readings and biographies of the patriarchs, as well as a glossary and list of Chinese terms. (shrink)

The Hwa Yen school of Mahāyāna Buddhism bloomed in China in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. Today many scholars regard its doctrines of Emptiness, Totality, and Mind-Only as the crown of Buddhist thought and as a useful and unique philosophical system and explanation of man, world, and life as intuitively experienced in Zen practice. For the first time in any Western language Garma Chang explains and exemplifies these doctrines with references to both oriental masters and Western philosophers. The (...) Buddha's mystical experience of infinity and totality provides the framework for this objective revelation of the three pervasive and interlocking concepts upon which any study of Mahāyāna philosophy must depend. Following an introductory section describing the essential differences between Judeo-Christian and Buddhist philosophy, Professor Chang provides an extensive, expertly developed section on the philosophical foundations of Hwa Yen Buddhism dealing with the core concept of True Voidness, the philosophy of Totality, and the doctrine of Mind-Only. A concluding section includes selections of Hwa Yen readings and biographies of the patriarchs, as well as a glossary and list of Chinese terms. (shrink)

This volume sets out to re-imagine the theoretical and epistemological presuppositions of existing scholarship on identities. Despite a well-established body of scholarly texts that examine the concept from a wide range of perspectives, there is a surprising dearth of work on multiple, heterogeneous forms of identity. Numerous studies of ethnic, linguistic, regional and religious identities have appeared, but largely in isolation from one another. Rethinking 'Identities' is a multi-authored project that is original in providing - in distributed and granular mode (...) - a hyper-contemporary and wide-ranging applied analysis that questions notions of identity based on nation and region, language, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion or even 'the human'. The volume achieves this by mobilizing various contexts of identity (gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nation) and medium (art, cinema, literature, music, theatre, video). Emphasizing the extreme contemporary (the twenty-first century) and the challenges posed by an increasingly global society, this collection of essays builds upon existing intellectual investigations of identity with the aim of offering a fresh perspective that transcends cognitive and geographical frontiers. (shrink)

"À l'ère postmoderne des incertitudes économiques et des défis identitaires qui sont ceux du XXIe siècle, penser l'être humain, c'est aussi explorer ou définir les univers non humains qui l'entourent. Toutefois, cette exploration est le plus souvent abstraite, figurative ou illustrative et reflète quasi exclusivement des intérêts humains. Elle instrumentalise ainsi les animaux, relégués à un rôle accessoire ou symbolique au profit d'une analyse concernée par l'humain et sa 'différence'. Cet ouvrage se départ de cette tendance pour considérer les responsabilités (...) humaines en regard des souffrances animales. Ce thème est en effet négligé par la pensée contemporaine, qui suit la trace anthropocentrique des priorités humaines d'une part, et par ailleurs rechigne à mener de front réflexion et militantisme. À travers une approche interdisciplinaire audacieuse, philosophes, vétérinaires, juristes, artistes, critiques littéraires, sociologues et historiens font ici part de leur désir de bouleverser les traditions humaines qui perpétuent l'oppression des animaux. Ils communiquent le fruit de leur expérience et de leur réflexion tout en exprimant l'urgence de leur engagement. En rompant le silence qui légitimise l'exploitation insensée de tous les êtres non humains, ils examinent certaines des conséquences de ces traditions, mais montrent également comment de nouvelles voies/x peuvent être prises, clamées et entendues afin de rendre possible la connexité de 'différents modes d'existence' (Bruno Latour)." [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

The large-scale and intensive collection and analysis of digital data (commonly called “Big Data”) has become a common, popular, and consensual research method for the social sciences, as the automation of data collection, mathematization of analysis, and digital objectification reinforce both its efficiency and truth-value. This article opens with a critical review of the literature on data collection and analysis, and summarizes current ethical discussions focusing on these technologies. A semiotic model of data production and circulation is then introduced to (...) problematize the view that digital data has ceased to stand for a formalization method (a possible kind of representation among others), and effectively “becomes the world itself” (a direct presentation of the world outperforming all other modes of representation). Following Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics and pragmaticist philosophy, we characterize digitalization as a hypersymbolic semiotic process, and we highlight the naturalization of meaning, the illusion of iconicity, and rhetorical efficiency on which data’s truth value relies within the context of its large-scale, profit-driven, and results-oriented research uses. This outlines some epistemological and ethical implications of data’s visualization, use, and authority, and indicates avenues for critical semiotics of contemporary data science and analysis. (shrink)

Gynaecological self-help, a well-known and historical feminist practice from the Second Wave movements which aims at embodying a radical alternative to traditional reproductive politics, is resurging today in France, Switzerland and Belgium. Drawing on empirical observations and interviews, this article questions the links between feminist memory of self-help, the shaping of nostalgia and the production of a political feminist ‘we’. Born at the end of the 1960s in the United States, feminist self-help travelled internationally and was appropriated differently depending on (...) national contexts. This ‘glorious’ history of self-help and, more importantly, its narrated memory, is central to contemporary European self-help activism, as observed in the three national contexts. Drawing on this insight, this article reveals the active memory-oriented emotional work of self-help activists. It examines the ways in which nostalgia for an imagined and lost past is actively and practically produced and encouraged in social movement practices, and highlights the specificity of the kind of collective feminist identity that it shapes and promotes in contemporary self-help politics. (shrink)

Inner speech has been shown to vary in form along several dimensions. Along condensation, condensed inner speech forms have been described, that are supposed to be deprived of acoustic, phonological and even syntactic qualities. Expanded forms, on the other extreme, display articulatory and auditory properties. Along dialogality, inner speech can be monologal, when we engage in internal soliloquy, or dialogal, when we recall past conversations or imagine future dialogues involving our own voice as well as that of others addressing us. (...) Along intentionality, it can be intentional (when we deliberately rehearse material in short-term memory) or it can arise unintentionally (during mind wandering). We introduce the ConDialInt model, a neurocognitive predictive control model of inner speech that accounts for its varieties along these three dimensions. ConDialInt spells out the condensation dimension by including inhibitory control at the conceptualization, formulation or articulatory planning stage. It accounts for dialogality, by assuming internal model adaptations and by speculating on neural processes underlying perspective switching. It explains the differences between intentional and spontaneous varieties in terms of monitoring. We present an fMRI study in which we probed varieties of inner speech along dialogality and intentionality, to examine the validity of the neuroanatomical correlates posited in ConDialInt. Condensation was also informally tackled. Our data support the hypothesis that expanded inner speech recruits speech production processes down to articulatory planning, resulting in a predicted signal, the inner voice, with auditory qualities. Along dialogality, covertly using an avatar’s voice resulted in the activation of right hemisphere homologues of the regions involved in internal own-voice soliloquy and in cerebellar deactivation, consistent with internal model adaptation. Switching from first-person to third-person perspective resulted in activations in precuneus and parietal lobules. Along intentionality, compared with intentional inner speech, mind wandering with inner speech episodes was associated with greater bilateral inferior frontal activation and decreased activation in left temporal regions. This is consistent with the reported subjective evanescence and presumably reflects condensation processes. Our results provide neuroanatomical evidence compatible with predictive control and in favor of the assumptions made in the ConDialInt model. (shrink)

Background The twenty first- century marked the exponential growth in the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligent in nursing compared to the previous decades. To the best of our knowledge, this article is first in responding to question, “Can nurses in clinical practice ascribe responsibility to intelligent robots and artificial intelligence when they commit errors?”. Purpose The objective of this article is to present two worldviews (anthropocentrism and biocentrism) in responding to the question at hand chosen based on the (...) roles of the entities involved in the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in nursing. Methods The development of this article was motivated by the immense discoveries, the current landscape, and nurses’ role in relation to advanced technologies in healthcare. The paper begins the discussion by situating the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in nursing and healthcare and presenting its ethical and moral implications. Then, we presented the two worldviews: anthropocentrism and biocentrism which are used to respond to the task at hand. Results Anthropocentrism puts humans in the center in terms of moral standing and thus responsibility rests on them alone. Biocentrism declares that all creations deserve moral consideration and thus responsibility is equally allocated to all entities. Within these two worldviews, consensus development was offered to resolve these issues. Consensus provides clarity and democracy between and among the societies. Conclusions The findings of this article can be basis in (1) instituting mechanisms of robust peer review and a rigorous series of simulation before adopting or implementing intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in clinical practice; (2) education and training of highly specialized nurse practitioners who can be focal persons in responding to ethical and moral issues with regard to these advanced technologies; and (3) harmonization of robotics research, manufacturing, and clinical practice. (shrink)

This article explores the critical role of emotions and bodies in the individual dynamics of engagement as well as the construction of collective identities and action in women’s groups in the 1970s in France. Much literature on emotion work in feminist organizations has tended to discuss emotions stemming from women’s dominant socialization processes as, above all, alienating, thereby as barriers to their activism. The Movement for the liberty of abortion and birth control offers essential insights into how gendered dispositions can (...) be primary determinants of feminist collective identity formation, and even spur innovative protest practices. With their specific organizational settings and action, some ‘dissident MLACs’ in Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Lyon and Paris – those which continued to practice abortion despite its legalization and in defiance of the 1975 law which forbade them to do so – mobilized reciprocal emotions and bodily experiences to sustain engagement and serve a political project. Drawing on a wide array of biographical interviews and archival sources centred on abortion practices, the article examines the distinctive emotion culture these groups constructed. Its anchoring in bodies, commitment to emotions like tenderness and compassion, but also domestic and relational skills consecrated a gendered repertoire of action which therefore notably appealed to women whose social properties did not predispose them to collective action. (shrink)

Quarterly publication discussing various topics in environmental ethics, including features, discussion papers, book reviews, editorial commentaries, and other text related to environmental philosophies. Some issues also include announcements and other news related to the environmental studies community.

Quarterly publication discussing various topics in environmental ethics, including features, discussion papers, book reviews, editorial commentaries, and other text related to environmental philosophies. Some issues also include announcements and other news related to the environmental studies community.

Saving Animals, a study of three different kinds of animal sanctuaries, is the first major ethnography to describe how sanctuaries “unmake” the notion of animals as property that reduces them to “bare life.” The study relies on numerous engaging narratives about rescue animals, their mutual interactions, and their interactions with the people who care for them—narratives that illustrate how the sentience and subjectivity of animals provide a firm ground for the author's ethical considerations. An animal sanctuary is ideally an intentional (...) community of cocitizens whose pragmatic and symbolic value resides in its ability to lay the foundation for a broad challenge to all violent practices of exploitation “targeted at a range of different others.” The patient, incremental work of sanctuaries has implications not only for the future of human-animal relations but more broadly for the future of humans on the planet. The ultimate vision of sanctuaries is a world outside that mirrors the world inside, a pantopia where there will be no “others,” only “us.”. (shrink)

In 1932, as America struggled to overcome the great economic depression and Hitler was taking power in Germany, Dewey issued a challenge to teachers. Based upon what he viewed as the principle by which to judge "the processes of education, formal and informal," he urged teachers to embrace the following goal: "Education should create an interest in all persons in furthering the general good, so that they will find their own happiness realized in what they can do to improve the (...) conditions of others" (LW 7: 243).In setting this challenge to teachers, Dewey has in mind helping students develop their character in two ways. First, teachers should nurture students' sensitivity to the impact of their speech and actions .. (shrink)

_Inspiring new techniques for engaging students with democratic ideals_ _John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope_ combines philosophical theory with a study of its effects in an actual classroom. To understand how Dewey, one of the century's foremost philosophers of education, understood the concept of hope, Stephen Fishman begins with theoretical questions like: What is hope? What are its objects? How can hope foster a new understanding of democracy and social justice? The book's second half is a classroom (...) study that mir-rors in practice what Fishman explores in theory, as Lucille McCarthy observes Fishman's undergraduate students reading the theorists. Illustrating students' own vital engagement with the hope literature, McCarthy reveals how the discussions deepen student understandings, simultaneously showing education's power to promote hope and turn social ideals into reality. (shrink)

Lucid dreaming refers to a dream state characterized by the dreamers awareness of being in a dream and being able to volitionally control its content. The aim of this study was to find neurophysiological evidence for the 7 criteria of lucid dreaming proposed by Paul Tholey. Each of the criteria was analyzed separately with regard to its underlying neurocircuits. We hypothesized that not one, but many regions are involved in the state of lucid dreaming. Our results have shown a satisfactory (...) overlap of the theoretical components and the brain regions activated during a lucid dream. During lucid dreaming, a brain network seems to emerge, that is more than the sum of its parts. Further research is needed to understand the psychoneurological underpinnings of lucid dreams. (shrink)

Nel Noddings claims that there is an important normative element in happiness. For support, she points to the Aristotelian idea of the eudaimonic life, a concept that is often translated into English as ‘the happy life’. However, in light of the wide divergence between the Aristotelian view of eudaimonia as a life of virtuous activity and most contemporary psychologists’ and lay people’s view of happiness as subjective wellbeing, the authors of this article believe that Noddings’s merging of the two has (...) several shortcomings. Aside from ambiguity and confusion, it encourages us to deny that, given the human condition, we must sometimes choose between happiness as pursuit of positive emotion and personal satisfaction and happiness as pursuit of the common good and the virtuous life. (shrink)

Dewey's theory of happiness goes against the grain of much contemporary psychologic and popular thought by identifying the highest form of human happiness with moral behavior. Such happiness, according to Dewey, avoids being at the mercy of circumstances because it is independent of the pleasures and successes we take from experience and, instead, is dependent upon the disposition we bring to experience. It accompanies a disposition characterized by an abiding interest in objects in which all can share, one founded upon (...) a dynamic inner harmony and evolving adjustment to the world. The marks of such an expansive disposition are "stability of character, braveness of soul, and equanimity of soul," and the key to the development of these traits is what Dewey calls "ethical love." We conclude with consideration of three potential criticisms of Dewey's view of happiness and possible Deweyan rejoinders. (shrink)