This paper explores the impact of the concepts of identity and difference on demented persons (especially on persons with Alzheimer's disease). The diagnosis of dementia is often synonymous with the assertion that demented individuals are no longer capable of making reasonable decisions. But rationality is an important aspect of characterizing a person's identity. Hence, this prevailing image of dementia as a loss of self and a change of identity leads to the situation that demented persons represent difference and otherness. Here, (...) the brain and the mind act as the source for difference. The paper discusses several identity concepts with regard to demented persons and the relationship between identity and difference in dementia. This analysis is accompanied by an examination of the current biopolitics of dementia and ageing as biopolitics constitutes the socio-political-medical understanding of dementia. Challenges and possibilities for dementia care will be explored in the context of this complex relationship between theoretical concepts and political, medical, and health-care practices. (shrink)
This collection of essays looks at the distinctively English intellectual, social and political phenomenon of Latitudinarianism, which emerged during the Civil War and Interregnum and came into its own after the Restoration, becoming a virtual orthodoxy after 1688. Dividing into two parts, it first examines the importance of the Cambridge Platonists, who sought to embrace the newest philosophical and scientific movements within Church of England orthodoxy, and then moves into the later seventeenth century, from the Restoration onwards, culminating in essays (...) on the philosopher John Locke. These new contributions establish a firmly interdisciplinary basis for the subject, while collectively gravitating towards the importance of discourse and language as the medium for cultural exchange. The variety of approaches serves to illuminate the cultural indeterminacy of the period, in which inherited models and vocabularies were forced to undergo revisions, coinciding with the formation of many cultural institutions still governing English society. (shrink)
Aggleton & Brown argue that a hippocampal-anterior thalamic system supports the “recollection” of contextual information about previous events, and that a separate perirhinal-medial dorsal thalamic system supports detection of stimulus “familiarity.” Although there is a growing body of human literature that is in agreement with these claims, when recollection and familiarity have been examined in amnesics using the process dissociation or the remember/know procedures, the results do not seem to provide consistent support. We reexamine these studies and describe the results (...) of an additional experiment using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) technique. The results of the reanalysis and the ROC experiment are consistent with Aggleton & Brown's proposal. Patients with damage to both regions exhibit severe deficits in recollection and smaller, but consistent, deficits in familiarity. (shrink)
This paper examines the theoretical background and actual behavior in a gaming tournament with endogenous timing where a person has more incentive, structure, and time to form a strategy. The baseline treatment suggests that subgame perfection is a reasonable predictor of behavior â- subjects made 170 of 208 theoretically predicted choices of best actions, with the majority of mistakes made in timing choices by the players who did not survive the cut to the second round. Four sensitivity treatments established that (...) the design feature that lead to more predictable behavior was time to think â- 745 of 960 correctly predicted decisions with more time versus 595 of 960 with less time. A random effects Probit model suggests that the key design feature that closed the gap between predicted and observed behavior was not necessarily the non-linear payoffs created by the tournament design, but rather that the key was providing people with more time to think about their strategy. (shrink)
This collection of articles pays homage to the creativity and scientific rigor Jerome Singer has brought to the study of consciousness and play. It will interest personality, social, clinical and developmental psychologists alike.
A central issue confronting both philosophers and practitioners in formulating an analysis of causation is the question of what constitutes evidence for a causal association. From the 1950s onward, the biostatistician Jerome Cornfield put himself at the center of a controversial debate over whether cigarette smoking was a causative factor in the incidence of lung cancer. Despite criticisms from distinguished statisticians such as Fisher, Berkson and Neyman, Cornfield argued that a review of the scientific evidence supported the conclusion of (...) a causal association. Cornfield's odds ratio in case‐control studies — as a good estimate of relative risk — together with his argument of ''explanatory common cause'' became important tools to use in confronting the skeptics. In this paper, I revisit this important historical episode as recorded in the Journal of National Cancer Institute and the Journal of the American Statistical Association. More specifically, I examine Cornfield's necessary condition on the minimum magnitudes of relative risk in light of confounders. This episode yields important insight into the nature of causal inference by showing the sorts of evidence appealed to by practitioners in supporting claims of causal association. I discuss this event in light of the manipulationist account of causation. (shrink)
Jerome and John Chrysostom explored the disgust and revulsion that people often feel when confronted with the suffering of another human being. Theyattempted morally to reform their listeners by showing them that they were just as vulnerable as those whom they disparaged, and by breaking down false barriers between the self and other. Jerome presented graphic details of one woman’s ministry to the sick and poor, while Chrysostom criticized the aloofspectator who encouraged the sick and poor to perform. (...) Disgust was thereby re-conceived as an inappropriate response to human suffering. (shrink)
Jerome Bruner is one of the grand figures of psychology. From his role as a founder of the cognitive revolution in the 1950s to his recent advocacy of cultural psychology, Bruner's influence has been dramatic and far-reaching. Such is the breadth of his vision that Bruner's work has inspired thinkers in many of the major areas of psychology and has had a powerful impact on adjacent disciplines. His writings on language acquisition, culture and education are of profound and enduring (...) importance. Focusing on the dominant themes of language, culture and self, this volume provides a comprehensive exploration of Bruner's fertile ideas and a considered appraisal of his legacy. With a distinguished list of contributors including Jerome Bruner himself, the result is an outstanding volume of interest to students and scholars in psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, anthropology, linguistics, and education. Among the contributors are Judy Dunn, Howard Gardner, Clifford Geertz, Rom Harré, David Olson, Edward Reed, Talbot Taylor, Michael Tomasello, and John Shotter. The volume is framed by an editorial introduction that considers the distinctively philosophical dimensions of Bruner's thought, and a final chapter by Bruner himself in which he re-examines prominent themes in his work in light of issues raised by the contributors. The volume will be invaluable to students and researchers in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, education, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)
The Church Father Jerome is well-known for his translation (or revision) of the Latin Bible which later was named Vulgate. He did not translate from the Greek as was the case with the so-called Vetus Latina but he sought the Hebrew truth (hebraica veritas). However, this raises the question as to how good his understanding of the Hebrew language actually was. Therefore it is asked where Jerome might have learned Hebrew and who his Jewish interlocutors might have been.
