BackgroundRecurrent Major Depressive Disorder is one of the most disabling mental disorders in modern society. Prior research has shown that self-compassion protects against ruminative tendencies, a key feature of recurrent MDD. In addition, self-compassion has been found to be positively related to higher psychophysiological flexibility in young, healthy adults. To our knowledge, there is a lack of studies on how self-compassion relates to vmHRV in patients with recurrent MDD. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether higher self-compassion (...) would associate with lower ruminative tendencies and higher vmHRV in a sample of adults with recurrent MDD.MethodsWe included a sample of 63 patients between 20 and 71 years old with a history of three or more depressive episodes. They filled out the Self-Compassion Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and Rumination Rating Scale. ECG was acquired while resting and the square root of the mean squared differences of successive RR interval values was calculated as measure of vmHRV.ResultsAs hypothesized, self-compassion was associated with lower ruminative tendencies. However, self-compassion was not associated with level of vmHRV. Several confounding variables were controlled for in the statistical analyses, and higher age predicted lower vmHRV across all statistical analyses.ConclusionThe results confirmed our hypothesis that higher self-compassion would be associated with lower ruminative tendencies in recurrent MDD. Contrary to our expectation, we did not find that the tendency to be more self-compassionate was associated with higher vmHRV. As such, higher self-compassion seems to relate with a lower tendency to ruminate about past mistakes and events but does not seem to relate to a flexible autonomic stress response. Other potential explanatory factors for lower vmHRV in recurrent MDD is suggested as focus for exploration in future studies. (shrink)

One of the most important and most interesting questions of the history of Christian thought is that of the influence of Platonism on Patristic and Scholastic speculation. Today, perhaps more than ever before, this question of the influence of Plato--and that of his later, more faithful disciples, the Neo-Platonists--presents itself as a fascinating issue. Ivánka is a historian, and the shorter essays and studies of a thirty-year research career are here recast and integrated into a unified book, focussing on some (...) major figures and problems of Christian Platonism. After a lengthy and highly interesting general reflection on Platonism and its historical fortunes, we have chapters on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, representing the culmination of Platonism in the Greek East and the Latin West respectively. The second part of the book is devoted to speculative mystical theology: Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus Confessor, the pre-Thomistic West, and at the end a fascinating chapter on the Platonic core of the spiritual doctrine of the late Byzantine centuries.--M. J. V. (shrink)

Amongst a backdrop of debate regarding Codes of Conduct and their raison d’etre this paper provides a detailed summary of the management systems used by multinational enterprises in the Code implementation process. It puts forth a framework for analysis based on the elements of – the creation of a vision, the development of understanding and ability, integration into operations and feedback, improvement and remediation – and then applies it across the sports footwear, apparel and retail sectors in order to firstly, (...) demonstrate the complexities of the Code implementation process and secondly, to provide useful examples and lessons-learned to companies, policy-makers and others interested in implementing their own Code of Conduct or who are actively involved in this field. (shrink)

Dieser Band präsentiert, gemeinsam mit anderen Beiträgen, die anlässlich der Gedenkfeier zum 100. Geburtstag von Leo Gabriel gehaltenen Vorträge am Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. Lange vor den gegenwärtigen Bestrebungen zu einer europäischen Integration hat Gabriel die Entwicklung der geistigen Gestalten Europas und das Verhältnis von Einheit und Vielheit integrativ zu erfassen versucht. Die Autorinnen und Autoren erörtern die Quellen sowie die Aktualität des integralen Denkens und vergleichen es mit phänomenologisch-existentialistischen, hermeneutischen, strukturalistischen und postmodernen Theorien. Überdies beinhaltet der Band (...) Zeugnisse und unveröffentlichte Manuskripte von Leo Gabriel. Aus dem Inhalt: Peter Kampits: Vorwort - Yvanka B. Raynova: Einleitung: Verantwortung für das Ganze - Leo Gabriel: Gestalten und Strukturen des integrativen Denkens - Leo Gabriel: Wissenschaft und Wertordnung (Unveröffentlichtes Manuskript) - Leo Gabriel Jr.: Von der Suche nach dem Ganzen zur Sucht nach Veränderung - Augustinus Karl Wucherer-Huldenfeld: Zur Aktualität des integralen Denkens Leo Gabriels - Sigrid Pöllinger: Wladimir S. Solowjew und der Begriff der All-Einheit - Günther Pöltner: Radikale Pluralität. Zur Problematik eines postmodernen Paradigmas - Yvanka B. Raynova: Integrales Denken im europäischen Kontext: Gabriel - Heidegger - Ricoeur - Roland Faber: "Insistenz". Zum "Nicht-Sein" Gottes bei Levinas, Deleuze und Whitehead - Rolf Kühn: Sinnlichkeit als Offenbarung. Eine phänomenologische Analyse zum Denken Simone Weils - Karl Baier: Der Mensch als Person und Anatman. Überlegungen zu einer Grundfrage im buddhistisch-christlichen Dialog - Werner Gabriel: Philosophisches Denken als Weg der Erlösung. Ein interkultureller Vergleich - Arno Böhler: Über die Dummheit: Einblick in den Abgrund des Denkens - Jürgen Trinks: Das offene Feld der Phantasie und die Fallstricke der Einbildung - Laurie Calhoun: The Paradox of Love and the Paradox of Morality: Triangular Reflections in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" - Yvanka B. Raynova: Leo Gabriel: Eine ausgewählte Bibliographie. (shrink)

The present essay is a compact form of the results obtained during many decades of research into the primeval foundations of the collective fields of force, both social and of consciousness. Since everything is determined by their origins, and the collective forces arise from the mind, we had to explore the ultimate origins of mind. We have come to recognize the law of interactions as the law and necessity which determine the primeval origins of mind. It also determines the substance (...) and essence of the Universe and the modes of its existence and functioning. The present essay is a concise form of results obtained during many decades of research in the primeval foundations of collective, both social and consciousness fields. I point out that a yet unknown type of forces existed in the Golden Age, which I termed as collective force. In the Golden Age mankind lived in communities which had a full unity. The communal life developed its collective forms, of which the most significant are the development of human speech, of language, share of work and the development of the communal fests. The law determining the primeval origins of mind is the cosmic law of interactions. It defines the substance of the Universe and the ways of its existence and activity. A detailed analysis is presented on the nature of the lay of interaction here. One consequence of this fundamental principle is the general prevalence of the principle of mutuality, which plays a basic role in the understanding of the unfolding and degeneration of consciousness. The principle of mutuality determines the changes of every levels of life. The laws of the generation of consciousness in the ages of evolution toward Homo and the Golden Age are analysed. I presented some evidences indicating the factual existence of the Golden Age, as well as its destruction, which was necessarily accompanied by the overthrow of the consciousness of the Golden Age, its repression and replacement by the newly developed rational, upper or superficial mind. Starting from the consideration that our mind is a product of our history, the phenomenon of the 'double mind' is recognised, the largely antagonistic duality of human mind. It is succeeded to solve the riddle of the double mind and determining its substance. Our double mind, consisting of the ‘upper’ or rational mind and the ‘deep-mind’, is a creature of the two fundamental ages of mankind, that of the age of power domination and the Golden Age. Therefore it expresses the duality of our history. We attempted to explore the heritage of the Golden Age embedded into our world of instincts, sexuality, emotional and sensual world, and the expressions of this heritage according to the different periods of our lives. If we will succeed in enlightening the deep-mind it may make it possible to give back the long-forgotten collective fields of forces to mankind, unavailable to the surface mind at present, and would expand the all-pervasive power of the conscious mind significantly. Hopefully, our results open up new vistas for the research of the collective fields and the double nature of the human mind, and may enable us to know and complete ourselves more deeply and thoroughly. (shrink)

La tentative de Husserl de fonder la philosophie comme « science rigoureuse » ainsi que certains principes de sa phénoménologie ont été remis en question par plusieurs de ses successeurs. La première partie du livre qui est consacrée à la question fondamentale de l’Être présente au moyen d’une comparaison herméneutique différentes relectures de la méthode husserlienne et de l’ontologie heideggerienne, relectures qui ont contribué aux « tournants » essentiels de la philosophie phénoménologique. La deuxième partie, qui traite de l’être-avec (Mitsein) (...) et de la liberté, explore quelques approches éthiques et politiques suite à l’application de la phénoménologie dans les domaines de la communication interpersonnelle et des relations sociales. (shrink)

Prejudiced beliefs may certainly seem like defective beliefs. But in what sense are they defective? Many will be false and harmful, but philosophers have further argued that prejudiced belief is defective also in the sense that it could only arise from distinctive kinds of epistemic irrationality: we could acquire or retain our prejudiced beliefs only by violating our epistemic responsibilities. It is also assumed that we are only morally responsible for the harms that prejudiced beliefs cause because, in forming these (...) beliefs in the first place, we are violating our epistemic responsibilities. In Prejudice, Endre Begby argues that these common convictions are misguided. His discussion shows in detail that there are many epistemically justified pathways to prejudiced belief, and that it is a mistake to lean on the concept of epistemic responsibility to articulate our ethical responsibilities. Doing so unreasonably burdens victims of prejudice with having to show that their victimizers were in a position to know better. Accordingly, Begby provides an account of moral responsibility for harm which does not depend on finding grounds for epistemic blame. This view is supported by a number of examples and case studies at individual, collective, and institutional levels of decision making. Additionally, Begby develops a systematic platform for non-ideal epistemology which would apply to a wide range of other social and epistemic phenomena of current concern, such as fake news, conspiracy theories, science scepticism, and more. (shrink)

As a general rule, whenever a hearer is justified in forming the belief that p on the basis of a speaker’s testimony, she will also be justified in assuming that the speaker has formed her belief appropriately in light of a relevantly large and representative sample of the evidence that bears on p. In simpler terms, a justification for taking someone’s testimony entails a justification for trusting her assessment of the evidence. This introduces the possibility of what I will call (...) “evidential preemption.” Evidential preemption occurs when a speaker, in addition to offering testimony that p, also warns the hearer of the likelihood that she will subsequently be confronted with apparently contrary evidence: this is done, however, not so as to encourage the hearer to temper her confidence in p in anticipation of that evidence, but rather to suggest that the (apparently) contrary evidence is in fact misleading evidence or evidence that has already been taken into account. Either way, the speaker is signalling to the hearer that the subsequent disclosure of this evidence will not require her to significantly revise her belief that p. Such preemption can effectively inoculate an audience against future contrary evidence, and thereby creates an opening for a form of exploitative manipulation that I will call “epistemic grooming.” Nonetheless, I argue, not all uses of evidential preemption are nefarious; it can also serve as an important tool for guiding epistemically limited agents though complex evidential scenarios. (shrink)

According to a common view, prejudice always involves some form of epistemic culpability, i.e., a failure to respond to evidence in the appropriate way. I argue that the common view wrongfully assumes that prejudices always involve universal generalizations. After motivating the more plausible thesis that prejudices typically involve a species of generic judgment, I show that standard examples provide no grounds for positing a strong connection between prejudice and epistemic culpability. More generally, the common view fails to recognize the extent (...) to which prejudices are epistemically insidious: once they are internalized as background beliefs, they quite reasonably come to control the assessment and interpretation of new evidence. This property of insidiousness helps explain why prejudices are so recalcitrant to empirical counterevidence and also why they are frequently invisible to introspective reflection. (shrink)

Belief polarization is widely seen to threaten havoc on our shared political lives. It is often assumed that BP is the product of epistemically irrational behaviors at the individual level. After distinguishing between BP as it occurs in intra-group and inter-group settings, this paper argues that neither process necessarily reflects individual epistemic irrationality. It is true that these processes can work in tandem to produce so-called “echo chambers.” But while echo chambers are often problematic from the point of view of (...) collective rationality, it doesn't follow that individuals are doing anything wrong, epistemically speaking, in seeking them out. In non-ideal socio-epistemic contexts, echo chamber construction might provide one's best defense against systematic misinformation and deception. (shrink)

'This book is a masterpiece of theoretical thought. It anticipates the actual achievements of much of what we now call sociolinguistics.

Beliefs can cause moral wrongs, no doubt, but can they also constitute moral wrongs in their own right? This paper offers some grounds to be skeptical of the idea that there are moral norms which operate directly on belief, independently of any epistemic norms also operating on belief. The resultant skepticism is moderate in the following sense: it holds that the motivations underlying the doxastic morality approach should not be dismissed lightly; they are genuine insights and serve to bring to (...) light important new issues concerning the interaction between our notions of moral and epistemic responsibility. Nonetheless, it is also skeptical, in holding that these concerns are ultimately best voiced in more traditional categories which distinguish the epistemology of belief from the morality of action. (shrink)

Things and Their Place in Theories Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and ...

Studying social phenomena is often assumed to be inherently different from studying natural science phenomena. In psychology, this assumption has led to a division of the field into social and experimental domains. The same kind of division has carried over into ecological psychology, despite the fact that Gibson clearly intended his theory for both social and natural phenomena. In this paper, we argue that the social/natural science dichotomy can be derived from a distinction between hermeneutics and science that is deeply (...) rooted in the atomistic, structuralist ontological tradition. We show that, from a process-based perspective, the central questions of hermeneutics (action of an individual within a context of possible actions), ecological psychology (behavior of an organism in an ecological niche) and physics (motion of a particle in a field) share a similar structure. Building on these ideas, we propose a common, process-based methodology for psychology that integrates field theory with insights from quantum mechanics to accommodate traditionally problematic concepts in natural science such as teleology and values. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, empirical findings on the paradigmatic problem of prospective control (such as gaze control in automobile driving in relation to perceptual tuning) are presented. (shrink)

Technologien haben schon lange Eingang in unseren Alltag gefunden und transformieren zahlreiche Lebensbereiche wie Politik, Wirtschaft, Bildung, Gesundheit und Pflege. Mittels Social Media pflegen wir zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen und kommunizieren miteinander, wir haben Apps zum Schlafen oder für die Ernährung und in der Medizin werden Technologien in den Körper implantiert oder zur Untersuchung des Körpers verwendet. Wearables, wie z. B. die Smart Watch, werden direkt am Körper getragen und müssen kaum noch abgenommen werden. Smart Watches messen den Puls und Herzschlag, zählen (...) unsere Schritte, melden sich, wenn man wieder aufstehen sollte und erfassen den Schlafrhythmus. Wir schlagen Wissen bei Wikipedia nach und lernen interaktiv über Smart Boards in der Schule. Über digitale Tools lässt sich das orts- und zeitunabhängige Zusammenarbeiten organisieren. Wie verändert sich das Menschsein in einer solchen technisierten Welt? Wie verändern sich die menschliche Lebenswelt, Handeln, Verantwortungsstrukturen und Identitätskonzepte? Puzio, Anna/Rutzmoser, Carolin/Endres, Eva-Maria: Menschsein in einer technisierten Welt – Einleitende Bemerkungen zu einer interdisziplinären Auseinandersetzung mit der digitalen Transformation. In: Endres, Eva-Maria/Puzio, Anna/Rutzmoser, Carolin (Hg.): Menschsein in einer technisierten Welt. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf den Menschen im Zeichen der digitalen Transformation. Wiesbaden 2022. (shrink)

Morality, as a distinctive reflection of the needs, interests, and tasks of real groups and classes, changes with the change in their historical status and functions. Such change is also characteristic of the morality of the working class, which passes through a number of stages in its development: proletarian morality under capitalism, socialist morality in socialist society, and communist morality of the developed, communist social relationships of the future. Within these three major periods it is possible to identify different phases (...) corresponding to changing conditions, concrete tasks, and needs. Thus elements of proletarian morality, which took shape in the period of free capitalist competition, undergo a definite transformation in the epoch of imperialism and also change in a period of revolutionary enthusiasm. (shrink)

Latash & Anson's intention to describe only the regularities of motor behavior is compromised by the homunculus paradigm. Although we concur on the need to redefine in atypical populations, we contend that this enterprise requires a process based functionalism. We argue for accommodating movement control and perceptual processes with physical and task constraints in a natural setting.

A propagator for a path space integral can be used to represent the and provides a natural way to model a control signal that is temporally segmented by placement of pairs of stimulating and recording electrodes. Although care must be exercised in interpreting the resulting measurement, the technique should prove useful to experimenters who study cerebellar functioning.