What role, if any, should emotions play in clinical reasoning and decision making? Traditionally, emotions have been excluded from clinical reasoning and decision making, but with recent advances in cognitive neuropsychology they are now considered an important component of them. Today, cognition is thought to be a set of complex processes relying on multiple types of intelligences. The role of mathematical logic or verbal linguistic intelligence in cognition, for example, is well documented and accepted; however, the role of emotional intelligence (...) has received less attention—especially because its nature and function are not well understood. In this paper, I argue for the inclusion of emotions in clinical reasoning and decision making. To that end, developments in contemporary cognitive neuropsychology are initially examined and analyzed, followed by a review of the medical literature discussing the role of emotions in clinical practice. Next, a published clinical case is reconstructed and used to illustrate the recognition and regulation of emotions played during a series of clinical consultations, which resulted in a positive medical outcome. The paper’s main thesis is that emotions, particularly in terms of emotional intelligence as a practical form of intelligence, afford clinical practitioners a robust cognitive resource for providing quality medical care. (shrink)

Originally published in 1923, this book had enjoyed constant and wide success, being reprinted fourteen times. In this new and thoroughly revised edition, published in 1964, the author has reconsidered his conclusions in the light of modern psychology of the time, and includes many case histories from his long experience as a psychiatrist. The book was important for its insistence that there is no intrinsic conflict between analytical psychotherapy and ordinary moral behaviour.

In this paper we attempt to sharpen and to provide an answer to the question of when human beings first become conscious. Since it is relatively uncontentious that a capacity for raw sensation precedes and underpins all more sophisticated mental capacities, our question is tantamount to asking when human beings first have experiences with sensational content. Two interconnected features of our argument are crucial. First, we argue that experiences with sensational content are supervenient on facts about electrical activity in the (...) cerebral cortex which can be ascertained through EEG readings. Second, we isolate from other notions of a‘functioning brain’that which is required to underpin the view that a cortex is functioning in a way which could give rise to rudimentary conscious experiences. We investigate the development in the human fetus of the anatomical and chemical pathways which underpin cortical activity and the growth and maturation of the electrical circuitry specifically associated with sensational content in adult experience. We conclude that a fetus becomes conscious at about 30 to 35 weeks after conception; an answer based on a careful analysis of EEG readings at various stages of cortical development. Finally, we survey the possible ethical ramifications of our answer. (shrink)

Although this note is prompted by the recent exchange between Gellner [2], [3] and Needham [4], I shall ignore the issues raised by Gellner's specification for an ideal language. I am concerned here only with Needham's statement that ‘biology is one matter and descent is quite another, of a different order’ which, it will be remembered, Gellner treats as Needham's first error. I write under a sense of obligation, for I discussed this matter with Gellner in 1955 while he was (...) preparing his first article and my arguments then were phrased similarly to those advanced by Needham. It appears that I did not make myself clear to Gellner and I shall try again. I do not wish to attack or defend either protagonist; each is quite able to look after himself. Therefore I propose neither to examine where they have misunderstood each other, nor to discuss the difference between kinship and descent, but simply to state the connexion, as I see it, between physical and social kinship. (shrink)

Was Metaphysik ist, läßt sich nicht apriorisch bestimmen, sondern zeigt sich erst in den denkerischen Entwürfen eines Ersten und Grundlegenden. Metaphysik ist, wie Philosophie überhaupt, von ihrer Geschichte nicht trennbar. Die philosophische Bedeutung der Periode des Mittelalters für den Gang der abendländischen Metaphysik ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten durch zwei klassische Studien herausgestellt worden.

Tertium datur - on the conception of truth in Dutch 'Ethical Theology'In this article the 'third option' on the Dutch theological scene of a century ago is examined. The 'Ethical Theology', as this option is known, is explained on the basis of its characteristic conception of truth as something that cannot be encapsulated in propositions but which can be encountered. In this context the relationship between the Ethicals and their rivals on both the left and the right is discussed. In (...) conclusion, an evaluation is given of the achievement of the Ethical current and its accommodation of reason and faith in a single theory. (shrink)

The introduction of the trireme into Greek navies was an event of great political importance, which may fairly be compared to the introduction of the ‘all-big-gun’ battleship into the British Navy in 1907. Heavier, more powerful, and capable of carrying more πιβται, but making greater demands on timber supplies and manpower, the trireme not only rendered obsolete all existing Greek line-of-battle ships but gave a decisive advantage to those States whose resources in materials and men enabled them to create and (...) maintain adequate fleets of the new type of warship.1 It is a mark of the insufficiency of our sources for early Greek history that we nowhere find an explicit statement of the date at which this revolution occurred, or of the identity of the person responsible. (shrink)

Recent accounts of the life of Protagoras differ widely from one another in their treatment of the ancient sources, and in the conclusions which they draw from them. A re-examination of the evidence, undertaken in 1949–50 as part of a study of the Prometheus trilogy, has convinced me that a new discussion is urgently needed if we are to place the earlier stages of the sophistic movement in the right context historically; and the purpose of this paper is to lay (...) at least a part of the foundation for such a discussion. Since the evidence for the life of Protagoras includes some allusions to his relations with Democritus, and there are some obvious affinities between the careers of Protagoras and Anaxagoras, I have added a short account of the relevant points in the biography of Democritus and a more detailed study of the evidence for the life of Anaxagoras. (shrink)