BackgroundThe diagnosis and treatment of cancer are associated with psychological distress that often leads to a significant reduction in emotional and physical well-being and quality of life. Early detection of psychological distress is therefore important. This study aims to assess the psychological distress of inpatient cancer patients using routine clinical data. Furthermore, variables and problems most strongly associated with psychological distress should be identified.Materials and MethodsN = 1,869 inpatients were investigated using the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Distress Thermometer and problem (...) checklist to assess distress as well as multiple possible problem areas. Visceral oncological cancer was the most common tumor diagnosis, followed by skin cancer and urological cancer.Results65.9% of the sample experienced high levels of distress. Female sex, stage 4 of disease, and visceral and head and neck cancer emerged as risk factors for high distress. A younger age was significantly correlated with higher distress. The most frequently self-reported problems were fears, worry, and fatigue. Patients with all 3 of these problems had 24 times higher risk [odds ratio = 23.9] for high levels of distress than patients without these problems. Women reported significantly more practical, emotional, and physical problems than men. Younger and middle-aged patients reported increased levels of practical, family, and emotional problems compared with older patients.DiscussionAlmost two-thirds of the sample reported high levels of distress. The most frequently reported problem areas were emotional and physical problems. These results can help to identify patients with high risk for psychological distress and, therefore, be used to optimize psychosocial and psycho-oncological care for patients with cancer. (shrink)

In its first part the article examines visions of the family during 1968 and the succeeding years. It concentrates in particular on alternative visions of the family, both at a theoretical level (as with David Cooper's Death of the Family), and at the level of social history, with the rise and fall of the commune movement. It does so with reference to a methodology which concentrates on relationships, principally those between the individual and the family, between family and between the (...) family and the state. In the second part it surveys the widespread changes that have beset family relations and family life in the advanced capitalist societies since 1968: the lowering of fertility rates, the gradual decline of marriage, the significant changes in the position of women in the family, the increase in individualisation, as manifested in the growth of single-member households. The article then seeks to explore the relationship, if any, between the movement of 1968 and these transformations in the family. It examines both conservative and progressive interpretations, and suggests that paradoxically the movement left few sediments in the relationship between family and civil society but rather more in that between the state and the family. (shrink)

This multi-faceted collection of women's perspectives on the renaissance in philosophical practices provides an international overview on the professional practice of philosophical counseling as rooted in the ancient philosophical discipline of life and its essential difference from modern mainstream philosophy.

This multi-faceted collection of women's perspectives on the renaissance in philosophical practices provides an international overview on the professional practice of philosophical counseling as rooted in the ancient philosophical discipline of life and its essential difference from modern mainstream philosophy.

As Christians, all twelfth-century Latin thinkers identified true happiness with the happiness God promises in the afterlife. This happiness was believed to be entirely spiritual, consisting in the endless vision of God. Nevertheless, along with this beatitudo in patria we also find in some twelfth-century authors the idea of a beatitudo in via as the philosophical life. This life can be characterized either as completely contemplative and solitary, or as one that remains partially attached to material circumstances and action in (...) society. Within this broad framework, this paper emphasizes three points:a. the ascetic and almost purely contemplative character of the ideal of the philosophical life as we find it in twelfth-century authors like Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury;b. the role played by philosophers in some twelfth-century triads of human types;c. the fact that, in spite of the monastic touch which often color them, many theses held by twelfth-century defenders of the philosophical... (shrink)

The article investigates how the problem of reference is treated in the theology of two pupils of Gilbert of Poitiers by means of suppo* terms. Supposition is for Gilbert an action performed by a speaker, not a property of terms, and he considers language as a system for communication between human beings: key notions are the ‘sense in the author’s mind’ and the ‘interpreter’s understanding’. In contrast, the two Porretans tend to objectify language as a formal system of terms. Suppositio (...) becomes in the Summa Zwettlensis the name itself as subject term in a proposition, and is divided into many kinds; formal rules are described which govern the influence of the predicate on the subject term’s denotation. In Everard of Ypres’ Dialogus Ratii et Everardi, supponere is a function of the name, and ‘human is a species of individuals’ is, as in some logical treatises and differently from Gilbert, a case of rhetorical transfer. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 221 - 248 One of the peculiarities of Peter Abelard’s analysis of incomplete and non-assertive sentences is his use of the notion of desire: in both _Dialectica_ and _Glosses on Peri hermeneias_ the terms _desiderium_ and _desidero_ move to the foreground side by side with _optatio, expectatio, suspensio_ and the related verbs. Desire plays a structural role in Abelard’s descriptions of the compositional way in which the linguistic message is received, changing step by (...) step from incomplete to complete: the person who receives the incomplete message desires to get further information through other words since he knows that the purpose of such words or sequences of words is to combine with other words in order to form a complete sentence. On the other hand, the expression of the speaker’s attention to his inner affections renders the same semantic content a different complete sentence. (shrink)

In an article published in 2003, Klaus Jacobi—using texts partially edited in De Rijk's _Logica Modernorum_—demonstrated that twelfth-century logic contains a tradition of reflecting about some of the transcendental names. In addition to reinforcing Jacobi's thesis with other texts, this contribution aims to demonstrate two points: 1) That twelfth-century logical reflection about transcendental terms has its origin in the _logica vetus_, and especially in a passage from Porphyry _Isagoge_ and in Boethius's commentary on it. In spite of the loss of (...) the major part of the Aristotelian corpus, the twelfth-century masters in logic still received some Aristotelian theses concerning the notions of one and being via Porphyry and Boethius; on the basis of such theses, they were able to elaborate a sort of proto-theory of the transcendentals as trans-categorical terms. 2) That this theory is centred on the idea that there exists a particular group of names which have the property that they can be said of everything; this group includes "being", "one", "thing" and "something". Twelfth-century masters in logic try to question the thesis that these terms are equivocal, although they do not deny it completely. (shrink)

Argues that affirming the irreducible differences between men and women can lead to more transformative politics than the struggle for abstract equality between the sexes. In The Symbolic Order of the Mother Luisa Muraro identifies the bond between mother and child as ontologically fundamental to the development of culture and politics, and therefore as key to achieving truly emancipatory political change. Both corporeal development and language acquisition, which are the sources of all thinking, begin in this relationship. However, Western (...) civilization has been defined by men, and Muraro recalls the admiration and envy she felt for the great philosophers as she strove to become one herself, as well as the desire for independence that opposed her to her mother. This conflict between philosophy and culture on the one hand and the relationship with the mother on the other constitutes the root of patriarchy’s symbolic disorder, which blocks women’s (and men’s) access to genuine freedom. Muraro appeals to the feminist practice of gratitude to the mother and the recognition of her authority as a model of unconditional nurture and support that must be restored. This, she argues, is the symbolic order of the mother that must overcome the disorder of patriarchy. The mediating power of the mother tongue constitutes a symbolic order that comes before all others, for both women and men. Luisa Muraro is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Verona, Italy. Francesca Novello is an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Timothy S. Murphy is Houston-Truax-Wentz Professor and Regents Professor of English at Oklahoma State University. (shrink)

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

How a human observer perceives duration depends on the amount of events taking place during the timed interval, but also on psychological dimensions, such as emotional-wellbeing, mindfulness, impulsivity, and rumination. Here we aimed at exploring these influences on duration estimation and passage of time judgments. One hundred and seventeen healthy individuals filled out mindfulness (FFMQ), impulsivity (BIS-11), rumination (RRS), and depression (BDI-sf) questionnaires. Participants also conducted verbal estimation and production tasks in the multiple seconds range. During these timing tasks, subjects (...) were asked to read digits aloud that were presented on a computer screen. Each condition of the timing tasks differed in terms of the interval between the presentation of the digits, i.e., either short (4-s) or long (16-s). Our findings suggest that long empty intervals (16-s) are associated with a relative underestimation of duration, and to a feeling that the time passes slowly, a seemingly paradoxical result. Also, regarding more mindful individuals, such a dissociation between duration estimation and passage of time judgments was found, but only when empty intervals were short (4-s). Relatively speaking, more mindful subjects showed an increased overestimation of durations, but felt that time passed more quickly. These results provide further evidence for the dissociation between duration estimation and the feeling of the passage of time. We discuss these results in terms of an alerting effect when empty intervals are short and events are more numerous, which could mediate the effect of dispositional mindfulness. (shrink)

This paper argues that a set of questioning attitudes are among the foundations of human and animal minds. While both verbal questioning and states of curiosity are generally explained in terms of metacognitive desires for knowledge or true belief, I argue that each is better explained by a prelinguistic sui generis type of mental attitude of questioning. I review a range of considerations in support of such a proposal and improve on previous characterizations of the nature of these attitudes. I (...) then broaden their explanatory scope to include a number of forms of exploratory search. The paper has three main goals: to characterize the nature of the questioning attitudes, outlining their causal role and type of content; to argue that they are fundamental components of the mind, being widespread among animals and not constructed during ontogeny out of other attitudes; and to suggest that they explain a great deal more behavior than one might think. (shrink)

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

An important debate in the current literature is whether “all truth-conditional effects of extra-linguistic context can be traced to [a variable at; LM] logical form” (Stanley, ‘Context and Logical Form’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 23 (2000) 391). That is, according to Stanley, the only truth-conditional effects that extra-linguistic context has are localizable in (potentially silent) variable-denoting pronouns or pronoun-like items, which are represented in the syntax/at logical form (pure indexicals like I or today are put aside in this discussion). According to (...) Recanati (‘Unarticulated Constituents’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 25 (2002) 299), extra-linguistic context can have additional truth-conditional effects, in the form of optional pragmatic processes like ‘free enrichment’. This paper shows that Recanati’s position is not warranted, since there is an alternative line of analysis that obviates the need to assume free enrichment. In the alternative analysis, we need Stanley’s variables, but we need to give them the freedom to be or not to be generated in the syntax/present at logical form, a kind of optionality that has nothing to do with the pragmatics-related optionality of free enrichment. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of communicative intention on action. In Experiment 1 participants were requested to reach towards an object, grasp it, and either simply lift it or lift it with the intent to communicate a meaning to a partner . Movement kinematics were recorded using a three-dimensional motion analysis system. The results indicate that kinematics was sensitive to communicative intention. Although the to-be-grasped object remained the same, movements performed for the ‘communicative’ condition (...) were characterized by a kinematic pattern which differed from those obtained for the ‘individual’ condition. These findings were confirmed in a subsequent experiment in which the communicative condition was compared to a control condition, in which the communicative exchange was prevented. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive pragmatics and current knowledge on how social behavior shapes action kinematics. (shrink)

Using Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy as his springboard, Peter S. Dillard provides a radical reorientation of contemporary Christian theology. From Heidegger’s initially obscure texts concerning the holy, the gods, and the last god, Dillard extracts two possible non-metaphysical theologies: a theology of Streit and a theology of Gelassenheit. Both theologies promise to avoid metaphysical antinomies that traditionally hinder theology. After describing the strengths and weaknesses of each non-metaphysical theology, Dillard develops a Gelassenheit theology that ascribes a definite phenomenology to the (...) human encounter with divinity. This Gelassenheit theology also explains how this divinity can guide human action in concrete situations, remain deeply consonant with Christian beliefs in the Incarnation and the Trinity, and shed light on the Eucharist and Religious Vocations. Seminal ideas from Rudolf Otto and Ludwig Wittgenstein are applied at key points. Dillard concludes by encouraging others to develop an opposing Streit theology within the non-metaphysical, Heidegerrian framework he presents. (shrink)

Dominikanische Theologie nimmt ihren Ausgang bei den Menschen in ihren konkreten Lebenssituationen inmitten der Welt. Diesen Ansatz vertrat bereits Thomas von Aquin, der auf die Tradition horen und gleichzeitig auf die sozialen und politischen Verhaltnisse seiner Zeit theologisch antworten wollte. Anlasslich der Verleihung des Titels "Magister in Sacra Theologia" haben sich die Dominikaner Tiemo Rainer Peters, aus der Tradition der Neuen Politischen Theologie, und der Mediavist Walter Senner historisch und theologisch mit dem Politischen bei Thomas von Aquin auseinandergesetzt und (...) dessen Bedeutung fur die Gegenwart reflektiert. Beide gehen von ihrer eweiligen wissenschaftlichen Hermeneutik aus und damit von unterschiedlicher Seite aufeinander zu - ein ungewohnliches Unterfangen mit signifikanten Erlebnissen. (shrink)

"Cover " -- "Title Page " -- "Copyright " -- "Contents " -- "Preface to the English Edition" -- "Introduction" -- "1. The Substitute" -- "2. Animals, Machines, Cyborgs, and the Taxi " -- "3. Mind, Emotions, and Artificial Empathy " -- "4. The Other Otherwise " -- "5. From Moral and Lethal Machines to Synthetic Ethics " -- "Notes" -- "Works Cited" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "Credits.

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but has (...) developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Knowledges and their histories -- Concepts -- Processes -- Problems and prospects -- Timeline.

Foreword -- Preface -- Is Aristotle's philosophy "divine, but useless"? -- Surveying the definition of Aristotle's "man" -- Exploring the habits of Aristotle's "ethical man" -- Exploring the habits of Aristotle's "working man" -- Aristotle on becoming something -- The gods and giants grapple with "art"! -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds his "goods" -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" sees the world in a grain of sand -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" gets to know his limits -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds "God" -- (...) Aristotle's "man" competes in the philosophical marketplace -- Aristotle's "philosophical man" finds himself -- Plato's "clever modern man" loses himself. (shrink)

Narrative thinking -- Narrative thinking about one's past -- Grief : a case study -- Narrative thinking about one's future -- Self-forgiveness : a case study -- The narrative sense of self -- Narrative, truth, life, and fiction.

Single-premise epistemic closure is the principle that: if one is in an evidential position to know that P where P entails Q, then one is in an evidential position to know that Q. In this paper, I defend the viability of opposition to closure. A key task for such an opponent is to precisely formulate a restricted closure principle that remains true to the motivations for abandoning unrestricted closure but does not endorse particularly egregious instances of closure violation. I focus (...) on two brands of epistemic theory that naturally incorporate closure restrictions. The first type holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant question. The second holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant topic. For each approach, I offer a formalization of a leading theory from the literature and use this formalization to evaluate the theory’s adequacy in terms of a precise set of desiderata. I conclude that neither theory succeeds in meeting these desiderata, casting doubt on the viability of the underlying approaches. Finally, I offer a novel variant of the topic-sensitive approach that fares better. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Introduction These essays have been written over a period of about ten years and have already been published separately in various places. ...