Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 93-94.

Meaningful relationships are centrally important for human functioning. It remains unclear, however, which aspects of meaningful relationships impact wellbeing the most and whether these differ between psychiatric patients and members of the community. Information about relationship attributes and functions were collected in community members and psychiatric patients. Relationship attributes and functions were examined for differences between groups, their impact on wellbeing and symptoms, and the size of network. Community members reported fewer relationships, higher frequency of contact and less desire for (...) change when compared to the psychiatric patients. Nevertheless, both groups reported relatively high levels of fulfilled functions. Quality of the relationship and investment into the relationship was associated with both wellbeing and symptoms for both the community and the patient group. Almost all functions were associated with wellbeing and symptoms for the community group. However, for the patient group, only few functions were associated with wellbeing and no functions were associated with symptoms. Contrary to our hypotheses, the results show that psychiatric patients do not have a deficit in fulfilling relationships. Most people report a well-functioning network of meaningful, high-quality relationships. Patients benefit from meaningful, function-fulfilling relationships just as much as community members. Results are discussed with respect to how targeting relationships can be used clinically. (shrink)

Researchers have argued that bilingual speakers experience less emotion in their second language. However, some studies have failed to find differences in emotionality between first and second lang...

Die erste Rezeption Kants unmittelbar nach Erscheinen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft zahlt zu den folgenreichsten und spannendsten Etappen der neueren Philosophiegeschichte. Erstaunlicherweise ist sie noch immer weithin unerforscht. Dieser Band geht auf eine Fruhkantianismus-Ausstellung der Universitat Jena (1993) zuruck. Er hilft, das Quellenmaterial leichter zu erschliessen. Kapitel uber Ch. G. Schutz, C. Ch. E. Schmid, die Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Reinhold, Schiller, Hufeland u.a. geben neue Einblicke in diese fruhe Etappe der Kantrezeption. An die hundert Abbildungen prasentieren teilweise vollig unbekanntes Quellenmaterial (...) von hohem Wert. The first reception of Kant directly after publication of the Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most momentous and fascinating stages in the recent history of philosophy. Surprisingly not much research has been done on this. This volume is the result of an exhibition of early Kantianism at the University of Jena in 1993. It helps to make the source material more easily accessible. Chapters on Ch. G. Schutz, C. Ch. E. Schmid, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Reinhold, Schiller, Hufeland among others provide new insight into this early stage of Kant's reception. There are approximately 100 illustrations which present very valuable source material, some of which was previously completely unknown. (shrink)

In contemporary discussion of the philosophy of religion, or for that matter of any branch of philosophy, the names of Whitehead and Wittgenstein are not often linked. Whitehead's later work is, for the most part, treated as a rather specialized interest, an attractively under-cultivated field for the enterprising thesis-writer perhaps, but well away from the main centres of current philosophical activity. And what he has to say about specifically religious or theological issues 1 becomes simply one ramification of an ingenious (...) but somewhat eccentric system. Nonetheless, there is at least this much justification for considering it in relation to the much more influential and widely discussed views of Wittgenstein. Whitehead has some original things to say about God, Wittgenstein some original reasons for thinking that Whitehead's brand of originality is here radically misplaced. And the possibility or otherwise of such theological originality is an issue of very considerable importance for the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

What is a natural kind? As we shall see, the concept of a natural kind has a long history. Many of the interesting doctrines can be detected in Aristotle, were revived by Locke and Leibniz, and have again become fashionable in recent years. Equally there has been agreement about certain paradigm examples: the kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kinds table, nation and banknote are not. Sadly agreement does not extend much further. It is impossible to (...) discover a single consistent doctrine in the literature, and different discussions focus on different doctrines without writers or readers being aware of the fact. In this paper I shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds. (shrink)

Accepted quantum description is stochastic, yet history is nonstochastic, i.e., not representable by a probability distribution. Therefore ordinary quantum mechanics is unsuited to describe history. This is a limitation of the accepted quantum theory, rather than a failing of mechanics in general. To remove the limitation, it would be desirable to find a form of quantum mechanics that describes the future stochastically and the past nonstochastically. For this purpose it proves sufficient to introduce into quantum mechanics, by means of a (...) perfected formal correspondence, certain analogs of the classical initial-condition constants. Through the restoration of such parameters at the quantum level one accomplishes a natural accommodation of time anisotropy, wave-function reduction, and “event” description by quantum mechanical equations of motion alone, without the need for extra postulates (e.g., a projection postulate). This requires a complete restructuring of quantum measurement theory. (shrink)

For years, both psychologists and the general public have been fascinated with the notion that there are gender differences in cognitive abilities; even now, flashy cover stories exploiting this idea dominate major news magazines, while research focuses on differences in verbal, mathematical, spatial, and scientific abilities across gender. This new volume in the Counterpoints series not only summarizes and addresses the validity of such research, but also questions its ideology and consequences. Why do we search so intently for these differences? (...) And what are the social and cultural implications of this relentless emphasis? Do biological mechanisms, in fact, contribute to the male-female differences in cognition? These are just a few of the questions generated by this controversial topic as it is debated throughout the book. (shrink)

Cognitive Development and Acquisition of Language.

It is traditionally believed that cerebral activation (the presence of low voltage fast electrical activity in the neocortex and rhythmical slow activity in the hippocampus) is correlated with arousal, while deactivation (the presence of large amplitude irregular slow waves or spindles in both the neocortex and the hippocampus) is correlated with sleep or coma. However, since there are many exceptions, these generalizations have only limited validity. Activated patterns occur in normal sleep (active or paradoxical sleep) and during states of anesthesia (...) and coma. Deactivated patterns occur, at times, during normal waking, or during behavior in awake animals treated with atropinic drugs. Also, the fact that patterns characteristic of sleep, arousal, and waking behavior continue in decorticate animals indicates that reticulo-cortical mechanisms are not essential for these aspects of behavior. (shrink)

Solon's fragments 9–11 are preserved in three late authors: frr. 9 and 11 by Diodoros Sikelos , 9.20.2, Plutarch , Solon 3.6 and 30.3 respectively, and Diogenes Laertios , 1.50 and 1.51 respectively; and fr. 10 by Diogenes Laertios alone, 1.49. They are all quoted in the context of Solon's reaction to Peisistratos. Stories on this theme were circulating by the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia , and Rhodes' scepticism about them is well founded. Its author did not garnish (...) his version of events with these poems, nor indeed with any Solonian utterance, and he explicitly states that myth-making on this subject had already resulted in two stories about Solon and Peisistratos which were chronologically impossible. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the significance of the irrational in education processes and to the role of teacher as an actor of psychological influence on the formation of child’s personality. Unfortunately, teacher education programs at universities do not properly introduce to the students all the aspects (including unconscious ones) of the interaction between people, in particular in the “teacher – student” system. At the same time, in the pedagogical literature there are no special works related to this issue. Psychological (...) theories and methods of education, which are designed to form and develop a personality, can simply destroy the necessary qualities in a child that lead to his independence and self-affirmation. Teachers who are incompetent in pedagogical issues often defend themselves by appealing to the well-known names of scientists and their theories. The theories should not become a dogma and a main path in education. They should serve as an auxiliary instrument. The theory of education is obliged to revise the content and form of the organization of educational process in accordance with the understanding and sense of the rhythm of the New World, taking into account the integration of educational concepts that provide a balance of the rational and irrational in the cognitive activity of a student. This balance is necessary for the full and comprehensive development of child’s personality, for the formation of his/her identity. The author of the article believes that under the conditions of large-scale simulacrization, virtualization, digitalization of the educational space, it is necessary to strengthen the emotional component of the educational process to avoid the final elimination of the aura (W. Benjamin) of the class area from the sphere of human relations in the “teacher – student – teacher” system. (shrink)

Laland and colleagues have sought to challenge the proximate–ultimate distinction claiming that it imposes a unidirectional model of causation, is limited in its capacity to account for complex biological phenomena, and hinders progress in biology. In this article the core of their argument is critically analyzed. It is claimed that contrary to their claims Laland et al. rely upon the proximate–ultimate distinction to make their points and that their alternative conception of reciprocal causation refers to phenomena that were already accounted (...) for by standard theory. (shrink)

In this, the first of a two-part paper, a conceptual purification of physics is advocated, whereby the idea of the field is completely eliminated in favor of particulate dynamical laws. Previous work concerning a specific formulation of such purely mechanical laws is reviewed and is shown to imply the possibility of existence of electrons and positrons within nuclei or “elementary” particles in stable bound states characterized by real mass-energy and imaginary momentum. The second part of the paper will examine the (...) qualitative implications and the sufficiency of such concepts for physical description.Newton, Introduction to thePrincipia. (shrink)

In this second part of our paper abeta structure hypothesis is advanced, according to which all matter and the vacuum are composed solely of electrons. A direct connection is established between beta processes and nuclear forces. Physical implications of the formalism introduced in Part I are examined. Localized violation of the Heisenberg postulate opens extensive descriptive possibilities inaccessible to current field-derived theories. A weakness of the present attempt at “elementary” particle description is its incapacity to predict observed masses or spatial (...) extensions. This results from the particular (one-body) model employed, which posits an infinitely massive point “force center.” Improvements in the formulation of the relativistic many-body problem will be required to correct this shortcoming. In summary, our investigation reaffirms the logical sufficiency (surmised by Newton) of the elements of mechanics for describing the phenomena of nature. (shrink)

In preceding parts of this paper the possibility was examined of accomplishing the entirety of physical description by means of mechanics, without help from field-theoretical ideas. Apart from some easily obtained qualitative agreements with general descriptive features of nuclei and elementary particles, we were balked in this program by an inability to handle in purely mechanical terms the relativistic many-body problem. The present paper is addressed directly to the latter problem. No quantitative calculations are attempted, but three suggestions are made (...) — each of a quite radical nature — concerning the reformulation that will be necessary to restore mechanics to the mainstream of physics. (shrink)

This book is a lucid and readable account of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana, not only as contributors to present-day secularism, but as precursors of religious liberalism. Beck traces the theme of "secularism and human values" through these thinkers, though difficulties arise from the fact that they represent a radical divergence of philosophic interests, and in any case would hardly have recognized, much less defended, the particular variety of secularism and religious liberalism that has arisen in recent times, (...) and with which the author associates them.—T. E. V. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement. Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue. Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. According to WTT, a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant (...) stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment. Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with brief remarks about our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account. (shrink)