Enhancing body awareness has been described as a key element or a mechanism of action for therapeutic approaches often categorized as mind-body approaches, such as yoga, TaiChi, Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Body Awareness Therapy, mindfulness based therapies/meditation, Feldenkrais, Alexander Method, Breath Therapy and others with reported benefits for a variety of health conditions. To better understand the conceptualization of body awareness in mind-body therapies, leading practitioners and teaching faculty of these approaches were invited as well as their patients to participate in focus (...) groups. The qualitative analysis of these focus groups with representative practitioners of body awareness practices, and the perspectives of their patients, elucidated the common ground of their understanding of body awareness. For them body awareness is an inseparable aspect of embodied self awareness realized in action and interaction with the environment and world. It is the awareness of embodiment as an innate tendency of our organism for emergent self-organization and wholeness. The process that patients undergo in these therapies was seen as a progression towards greater unity between body and self, very similar to the conceptualization of embodiment as dialectic of body and self described by some philosophers as being experienced in distinct developmental levels. (shrink)

I focus on two aspects: The complexity of understanding heart rate variability, which is not acknowledged in Porges’s polyvagal theory; and The goals of self-regulation that vary ….

Theories of embodied cognition hypothesize interdependencies between psychological well-being and physical posture. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of objectively measuring posture, and to explore the relationship between posture and affect and other patient centered outcomes in breast cancer survivors with persistent postsurgical pain over a 12-week course of therapeutic Qigong mind-body training. Twenty-one BCS with PPSP attended group Qigong training. Clinical outcomes were pain, fatigue, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, stress and exercise self-efficacy. Posture outcomes were vertical (...) spine and vertical head angles in the sagittal plane, measured with a 3D motion capture system in three conditions: eyes open, eyes open relaxed and eyes closed. Assessments were made before and after the Qigong training. The association between categorical variables was measured by Cramer’s V. In the EO condition, most participants who improved in fatigue and anxiety scales also had better vertical head values. For the EOR condition, a moderate correlation was observed between changes in vertical head angle and changes in fatigue scale. In the EC condition, most of the participants who improved in measures of fatigue also improved vertical head angle. Additionally, pain severity decreased while vertical spine angle improved. These preliminary findings support that emotion and other patient centered outcomes should be considered within an embodied framework, and that Qigong may be a promising intervention for addressing biopsychosocially complex interventions such as PPSP in BCSs. (shrink)

My strategy is to examine a recent trend in philosophical discussions of responsibility, a trend that tries, but I think ultimately fails, to give an acceptable analysis of the conditions of responsibility. It fails due to what at first appear to be deep and irresolvable metaphysical problems. It is here that I suggest that the condition of sanity comes to the rescue. What at first appears to be an impossible requirement for responsibility---the requirement that the responsible agent have created her- (...) or himself---turns out to be the vastly more mundane and non controversial requirement that the responsible agent must, in a fairly standard sense, be sane. (shrink)

Bringing these two emergent areas of thought into direct conversation in Before the Law, Cary Wolfe fosters a new discussion about the status of nonhuman animals and the shared plight of humans and animals under biopolitics.

Los Comités Hospitalarios de Bioética (CHB) tienen la atribución de emitir sugerencias al personal de salud, ante casos clínicos difíciles que involucran problemas y/o dilemas bioéticos. A nivel mundial, y también en México, se encontró poca literatura relacionada, generando en ocasiones cierto grado de incertidumbre en los profesionales de la salud para su resolución. Objetivo: describir los motivos de presentación de casos clínicos de pacientes ante el CHB en un hospital de segundo nivel, desde junio de 2007 a junio de (...) 2018. Método: estudio observacional, descriptivo, retrospectivo y transversal; la muestra fue por conveniencia y se obtuvieron 48 registros de minutas. Resultados: el motivo de consulta más frecuente ante los CHB fue el apoyo en la decisión para la limitación del esfuerzo terapéutico, con 24 casos (50%). Se identificaron 34 dilemas bioéticos (71%) y 14 problemas bioéticos (29%). Conclusiones: ayudará a los servicios médicos tratantes a identificar e intervenir oportunamente, al basarse en situaciones previas sobre dilemas y/o problemas bioéticos. (shrink)

Bioethics has paid surprisingly little attention to the special problems faced by women and to feminist analyses of current health care issues other than ...

At the very beginning of L’Homme-Machine, La Mettrie claims that Leibnizians with their monads have “rather spiritualized matter than materialized the soul”; a few years later Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, President of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and natural philosopher with a strong interest in the modes of transmission of ‘genetic’ information, conceived of living minima which he termed molecules, “endowed with desire, memory and intelligence,” in his Système de la nature ou Essai sur les corps organisés. This text first (...) appeared in Latin in 1751 under the title Dissertatio inauguralis metaphysica de universali naturae systemate, with the pseudonym Dr Baumann; it was translated by Maupertuis in 1754 as Essai sur la formation des corps organisés and was later included in his 1756 Œuvres under the title Système de la nature. Now, it is clear that Maupertuis was a kind of Leibnizian; and that his molecule possessed higher-level, ‘mental’ properties. In that sense he falls under the first category described by La Mettrie. But he was also involved in a debate on this issue with Diderot, who put forth a sustained critique of Maupertuis’ theory of the molecule in the additions to his 1753 Pensées sur l’interprétation de la nature. Where Maupertuis attributes higher-level properties to his living minima, Diderot argues that these properties are ‘organizational’, i.e., they can only be properties of the whole. At issue here is the degree of commitment to a form of materialism. (shrink)

" Descartes ne qualifie sa cosmologie que sous le modeste diminutif d'une "fable du monde". Ceci peut s'interpréter comme l'aveu d'une impuissance de la raison à atteindre l'authentique fabrique du monde. Mais avant d'être une fiction dénuée de toute vérité, une fable est d'abord un récit, comme celui que l'Ecriture propose au premier livre de la Genèse. Nous enquêtons ici sur le commentaire cartésien de la Genèse, texte perdu, mais suffisamment avancé pour que Descartes envisageât, en 1640, de le soumettre (...) à l'approbation de la Sorbonne. Qu'y aurait-il montré? Qu'en concevant le mouvement comme une séparation réciproque des parties de l'étendue, il se conformait à la lettre au récit mosaïque de la création. Descartes s'appuie sur une lecture précise de la Genèse, mais une lecture si originale et si peu orthodoxe qu'il doit presque aussitôt renoncer à en faire une caution pour sa philosophie naturelle. Nous enquêtons donc moins sur cet In Genesim, que sur les raisons de sa disparition. ". (shrink)

The problem -- The Christian concept of truth -- Metaphysical experience and Christian dogmatics -- Understanding revelation -- The renewing of the mind -- The dialogue between the theologian and the philosopher -- Conclusion: The difficult condition of the Christian philosopher.

Abstract (German version follows): -/- This paper develops a new proposal for a coherentist business ethic in which ethically justified and empirically supported proposed solutions to economic problems are developed through a coherentist process of adjustments between the three levels of (1) conception of problem and its solution, (2) positive economic theory, and (3) ethical theories. Using an example, it illustrates how in this framework, Homann's business ethics gains in validity and relevance but loses its claim to universality. // -/- (...) Diese Arbeit entwickelt eine kohärentistische Wirtschaftsethik, in der ethisch begründete und empirisch gestützte Lösungsvorschläge für ökonomische Probleme durch einen kohärentistischen Anpassungsprozess zwischen den drei Ebenen (1) Auffassung von Problem und Lösungsansatz, (2) positive ökonomische Theorie, sowie (3) ethischen Theorien erarbeitet werden. Anhand eines Beispiels wird illustriert, wie Homanns Wirtschaftsethik in diesem Rahmen an Validität und Relevanz gewinnt, jedoch ihren Universalitätsanspruch verliert. (shrink)

The Library of the Royal Society of London contains a large collection of manuscript material relating to Henry Oldenburg and his correspondents. Oldenburg was one of the two Secretaries of the Royal Society when it was founded in 1662. For many years he acted as intermediary between British and Continental philosophers: and scientists. He also edited the early volumes of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions . His contacts were accordingly very extensive. Nearly all the seventeenth-century pioneers of science were among (...) his correspondents. In his role of intermediary he was in the habit of sending extracts from some of his foreign letters to. (shrink)

A System of philosophy, a comprehensive world-view, is a work of art, although it is also more than that. Already Plato described the philosopher as a poet, and Plato himself was a great poet as well as a great philosopher. In recent years Professor Alexander has explained, on various occasions, that there is artistry involved in all scientific and philosophic thought. They demand creative intellectual construction of a high order. In so far as this is true, as I believe it (...) is, it should be possible, sometimes at least, to contemplate a great system of philosophy as a work of art, to enjoy it in a spirit of detachment, above the noise and the tumult of conflicting personal convictions.It is more or less in this spirit that I propose on this occasion to deal with some of the fundamental ideas of Spinoza. That, I believe, is in accordance with his own wishes. He wanted his works to be published anonymously, so that his philosophy might be considered impersonally, entirely on its own merits. Such a method of treatment may in any case be most suitable on this occasion when, in spite of probably great divergences in our individual views, we have come together to do honour to his memory. This kind of personal tribute may be contrary to his own wishes. But we owe it to ourselves, and to mankind at large, to keep alive the remembrance of one of the greatest masters of the art of high thinking and plain living. (shrink)

Que ce soit à l’occasion d’un exercice académique obligé, dans les marges de l’activité théorique, ou bien qu’il s’agisse d’un exercice philosophique destiné à tester la cohérence et la solidité d’un « système », la philosophie produit du biographique, selon les modalités et les régimes discursifs les plus divers. Depuis l’Antiquité, des philosophes compilent discours et anecdotes, et font l’exégèse d’une doctrine dans une perspective tantôt apologétique, tantôt critique – que l’on songe, par...

This chapter discusses the analysis of Joseph Raz on coercion, trust, and citizenship. The chapter starts with a number of brief comments on some of his observations regarding the doctrine of liberty and the preference for minimum government. The chapter also includes one of Raz's arguments that states that some people favour non-perfectionist forms of government out of a misunderstanding of the implications of perfectionism for liberty.

Ce livre étudie, à travers une série d'épisodes allant de la philosophie des Lumières à notre époque, le problème du matérialisme dans l'histoire de la philosophie et l’histoire des sciences. Comment comprendre les spécificités de l’histoire du matérialisme, des Lumières à nos jours, au sein de la grande histoire de la philosophie et de l’histoire des sciences ? Quelle est l’actualité de l’opposition classique entre le corps et l’esprit ? Qu’est-ce que le rire ou le rêve peuvent nous apprendre du (...) matérialisme ? En traversant l’histoire de ce concept jusqu’à l’émergence d’un « nouveau matérialisme » contemporain, l’ouvrage vise à revitaliser le matérialisme et sa lecture. -/- . (shrink)

I here present a feminine voice version of the moral case against abortion and draw from it some conclusions for public policy. My motto is solidarity with the last and least. The unborn individual is “one of us”—to be welcomed, not dismissed as a burden on society. Abortion, I argue, is bad for women, bad for children, and bad for the rest of us. Public policy should reflect these conclusions.

It is now well-known that Newton–Cartan theory is the correct geometrical setting for modelling the quantum Hall effect. In addition, in recent years edge modes for the Newton–Cartan quantum Hall effect have been derived. However, the existence of these edge modes has, as of yet, been derived using only orthodox methodologies involving the breaking of gauge-invariance; it would be preferable to derive the existence of such edge modes in a gauge-invariant manner. In this article, we employ recent work by Donnelly (...) and Freidel in order to accomplish exactly this task. Our results agree with known physics, but afford greater conceptual insight into the existence of these edge modes: in particular, they connect them to subtle aspects of Newton–Cartan geometry and pave the way for further applications of Newton–Cartan theory in condensed matter physics. (shrink)

This analysis investigates whether solidarity is an appropriate concept for thinking about justifications for a just distribution of bioethical goods in the international arena. This will be explored by looking at the national origins of the idea of justifying solidarity in the form of the health care that welfare states offer. Following that, ‘life’ and ‘health’ will be placed within a philosophical context by focusing on the main arguments of John Rawls and Amartya Sen and the role of solidarity in (...) these two theories of justice will be analysed. It will be shown that these theories assume that solidarity is not a prerequisite for just international structures. Finally, the possibility will be discussed, that there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding justifications for fair distribution in the international context that can result when the concepts of solidarity and justice are handled imprecisely. (shrink)

The living body appears like an endlessly renewable reservoir of authenticity, hope, and taboo. But, for the sake of conceptual clarity, we are often been told that the (mere) body should be distinguished from the flesh. That is, it’s undeniable that I have a body; that I notice yours; that we worry about their birth and death and upkeep. But the flesh is a more transcendentalized, loaded concept – not least given its frequently religious background (incarnation: the Word made Flesh). (...) It is the body ‘kicked upstairs’, ‘bumped up’ one ontological level. Flesh is like a mantra, an obsessive leitmotif. Is the difference just one of abstraction? Indeed, crucial to the narrative of phenomenology (most obviously in Merleau-Ponty but really, throughout, including in enactivism), to the story of ancestor worship and identity it tells itself and its acolytes around the campfire, is a basic distinction between the merely physical body and the flesh as something requiring ‘mineness’, namely, an understanding of it as uniquely ‘my own’, a feeling of ‘what it is like to be embodied’. This goes back to the Husserlian distinction between Körper, ‘body’ in the sense of one body among others in a vast mechanistic universe of bodies, and Leib, ‘flesh’ in the sense of a subjectivity which is the locus of experience. In this essay I reflect on this vision of the body’s authenticity and its costs, and contrast it with insights derived from Georges Canguilhem, whose critique of mechanism/mechanicism is not done in the name of a wholescale organicism and/or an unproblematized éloge of embodiment and privacy. (shrink)