In 2020, Amy-Jill Levine challenged the Society of Christian Ethics to take Christian privilege seriously. But Christian ethicists generally neglect Christian privilege as a distinct type. One site for Christian privilege is the ideal of authenticity, which grew from the idea that Christianity represents love, interiority, and spirituality (spirit), while Judaism represents legalism, exteriority, and materiality (letter). By prioritizing “spirit” over “letter,” an isolated ethic of authenticity can detach moral identity from history, race, community, land, and other seemingly extrinsic factors. (...) I draw on Willie James Jennings and Daniel Boyarin to illustrate authenticity’s exclusionary potential and Moses Mendelssohn to construct a more inclusive ideal. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

Writing about the intellectual development of a philosopher is a delicate business. My own endeavor to reinterpret the influence of Hegel on Dewey troubles some scholars because, they believe, I make Dewey seem less original.1 But if, like Dewey, we overcome Cartesian dualism, placing the development of the self firmly within a complex matrix of social processes, we are forced to reexamine, without necessarily surrendering, the notion of individual originality, or what Neil Gross calls “discourse[s] of creative genius.”2 To use (...) a mundane example, I can recall several conversations with Dewey scholars about his dislike for his home state of Vermont, all of which revolved around personal reasons he may.. (shrink)

It is intuitive to think that divine transcendence is incompatible with the sacredness of nature, especially when transcendence is combined with the idea that God alone is valuable. Divine transcendence seems to demote this-worldly values in favor of union with God in a disembodied afterlife. Divine transcendence also seems to legitimize hierarchies, including male–female and human-nature hierarchies. Divine immanence seems a better alternative. This set of intuitions about transcendence appears regularly in the field of Religion and Ecology, sometimes as an (...) implicit backdrop rather than an explicit position. This backdrop needs to be thematized and evaluated. For those with ecological concerns, divine transcendence and divine immanence need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, divine transcendence (understood non-contrastively) complements divine immanence and is compatible with both animist and polytheist cosmologies. The extent of this mutual compatibility and its importance for environmental concerns has yet to be fully articulated. (shrink)

For Kant’s moral universalism, contingent religious law is legitimate only when it serves as a means of fulfilling the moral law. Though Kant uses traditional theological resources to account for the possibility of “statutory ecclesiastical law” in historical religions, he denies this possibility to Jewish law. Something like Kant’s logic appears in the work of some of his intellectual successors who continue to define Christianity in terms of its moral superiority to Judaism while attempting to excise remaining “Jewish” elements from (...) it. A more adequate account of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and the origins of Christianity exposes deficiencies in Kant’s universalizing logic which seems to deny any intrinsic value to historical religions. A possible alternative may lie in a modified account of the relationship between the moral law and religious law, perhaps nourished by Jewish thought, including the rabbinic tradition of the Noachide commandments. (shrink)

This collection of thirteen original essays by such well-known philosophers as Thomas Nagel, Peter Singer, J.O. Urmson, David A.J. Richards, James Griffin, R.B. Brandt, John C. Harsanyi, T.M. Scanlon, and others discusses the philosophy of R.M. Hare put forth in his book Moral Thinking, including his thoughts on universalizability, moral psychology, and the role of common-sense moral principles. In addition, Professor Hare responds to his critics with an essay and a detailed, point-by-point criticism.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

In an increasingly complex military operating environment, next generation wargaming platforms can reduce risk, decrease operating costs, and improve overall outcomes. Novel Artificial Intelligence enabled wargaming approaches, based on software platforms with multimodal interaction and visualization capacity, are essential to provide the decision-making flexibility and adaptability required to meet current and emerging realities of warfighting. We highlight three areas of development for future warfighter-machine interfaces: AI-directed decisional guidance, computationally informed decision-making, and realistic representations of decision spaces. Progress in these areas (...) will enable development of effective human-AI collaborative decision-making, to meet the increasing scale and complexity of today’s battlespace. (shrink)

Background Flourishing and belonging are key concepts for the wellbeing of staff and the success of a profession. Alienation and anomie are distinct types of psycho-social ills which inhibit flourishing and belonging. A better understanding of these may offer hope in preventing many negative work endpoints, including burnout and intention to leave. Objectives To systematically review and narratively synthesise alienation and/or anomie in pharmacists across the globe, reviewing all types of methodological designs, published in peer-reviewed journals. Methods We identified published (...) peer-reviewed research through searching eight electronic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science – Core Collection, Scopus, and Google Scholar) and extensive hand/citation searching. Two independent reviewers identified and critiqued eligible studies, extracted data, and synthesised the findings. The synthesis evaluated the focuses, causes, associated factors, and/or consequences of alienation and/or anomie and aligned these to six deductive themes from alienation theory: care; values; meaning; recognition; autonomy; and shared responsibility. Results Searches identified 886 papers, with 47 included in the final results. From the synthesis, ten key causes of alienation and/or anomie were identified; 1) Changing Professional Identity, 2) Reimbursement Models & Corporatisation, 3) Focus on Medicines Rather than People, 4) Misunderstanding & Deprofessionalisation, 5) Environments & Culture, 6) Suboptimal Societal Mandate, 7) Roles Misaligned with Aspirations, 8) Systematic Underutilisation, 9) Lack of Professional Agency, and 10) Value Conflict. From the evidence, there was high confidence that inhibitions of care, values, recognition, and/or autonomy (four of the six deductive themes) were associated with alienation and/or anomie. Conclusion Alienation and/or anomie are present across many countries and regions. This paper helps us understand the aetiology of this complex psycho-social syndrome, a necessary first step in creating an inclusive profession where all pharmacists can flourish. Future research needs to trial new interventions targeted at correcting this professional malady. (shrink)

Can original philosophy be done while simultaneously engaging in the history of philosophy? Such a possibility is questioned by analytic philosophers who contend that history contaminates good philosophy, and by historians of philosophy who insist that theoretical predecessors cannot be ignored. Believing that both camps are misguided, the contributors to this book present a case for historical philosophy as a valuable enterprise. The contributors include: Todd L. Adams, Lilli Alanen, Jos? Bernardete, Jonathan Bennett, John I. Biro, Phillip Cummins, Georges Dicker, (...) Daniel A. Dombrowski, Daniel Garber, Josiah Gould, Jorge J.E. Gracie, Daniel Graham, Charles Griswold, James Lawler, Rudolf Luthe, Edward H. Madden, George Mavrodes, Gerald E. Myers, Jonathan R?e, Frithjof Rodi, Kenneth L. Schmitz, Vladimir Shtinov, David G. Stern, Robert Turnbull, James Van Cleve, Frederick Van De Pitte, Henry Beatch, and Richard Watson. (shrink)

How does our understanding of what it means to be rational affect our interpretation of the world around us? ... Essayists discuss the nature and extent of rationality - its content, focus, and the intrinsic guidelines for using the term "rational" when describing persons or actions. The distinguished contributors to this collection include Max Black, Steven J. Brams, James H. Bunn, Christopher Cherniak, Murray Clarke, Marjorie Clay, Paul Diesing, Antony Flew, John T. Kearns, D. Mark Kilgour, Hilary Kornblith, Charles (...) H. Lambros, Duncan MacIntosh, Alistair MacLeod, Robert G. Meyers, Erwin Segal, Zeno G. Swijtink, Brice R. Wachterhauser, and Paul Weirich. (shrink)

Star Trek is a successful popular cultural endeavor because it allows for exactly different kind of imaginative escapism, the possibility of joining in on an alternative narrative. In “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the Enterprise orbits a mysterious planet, where on its surface someone or something is causing temporal and spatial displacement. This chapter uses Romanticism as a philosophical gateway to the sublime experience that is the Guardian of Forever. The Guardian of Forever is the cause of the (...) spatial displacement and ripples in time that shake the Enterprise at the episode's beginning. Friedrich Nietzsche in his writings on Greek history, adopted the Romantic attitude toward the past by suggesting there are certain meaningful archetypes in the Greek past: in the context of “City on the Edge”, James T. Kirk represents the Tragic Hero, Spock the Apollonian figure, and McCoy the Dionysian figure. (shrink)

Rights and duties to will to believe have too long been considered an embarrassing indulgence by philosophers who pride themselves on their methodological rigor. A fresh look at William James's work will show how a more robust, though no less analytically rigorous, ethics of belief is possible.The history of James's ethics of belief is a stormy one, filled with mainly hostile criticisms on the part of others, with seminal suggestions, gropings, and retractions on the part of James (...) himself. At various points in the development of this ethics of belief, one encounters such expressions as “duty to believe,” “will to believe,” and “right to believe,” the last gaining prominence as James grew older. (shrink)

From the author and illustrator of the international bestseller Big Panda and Tiny Dragon comes a beautifully illustrated exploration into the journeys we take for self-discovery and the connections we make along the way. In a distant city, an old cat considers himself as wise as can be, until he hears of an ancient pine far away, under the boughs of which infinite wisdom can be found. Thus, the Cat embarks on a journey deep into the forest to search for (...) the tree. Along the way, he meets new friends--the Hare, the Magpie, the Wolf Cub, the Monkey, the Tortoise, and the Tiger--and comes across the energetic young Kitten. What wisdom does the Cat have to impart to his friends, and, perhaps more importantly, what does he still have to learn? Inspired by Zen koans, with stunning illustrations and a gentle voice, The Cat Who Taught Zen has wisdom to offer all readers. (shrink)

Roughly thirty years ago, R. M. Hare told an Anglo-French philosophy conference about a young Swiss student who came to stay with his family in Oxford. It seems that the student was doing very nicely, until, in a burst of misguided hospitality, the Hares provided him with one of their few French books, Camus's L'Etranger. Reading Camus had the effect of changing the student from an affable, altogether attractive young man into a chain-smoking recluse for whom “rien, rien n'avait d'importance”.

Background -- The moral manualists -- Initiating reform : Odon Lottin -- Retrieving Scripture and charity : Fritz Tillman and Gérard Gilleman -- Synthesis : Bernard Häring -- The neo-manualists -- New foundations for moral reasoning, 1970-89 -- New foundations for a theological anthropology, 1980-2000 -- Toward a global discourse on suffering and solidarity -- Afterword: The encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DISTINGUISHING CHARITY AS GOODNESS AND PRUDENCE AS RIGHTNESS: A KEY TO THOMAS'S SECUNDA PARS JAMES F. KEENAN, S.J. Weston School of Theology Cambridge, Massachusetts HE RESPECTIVE functions of charity and prudence Thomas Aquinas's moral theology provide a key to his nderstanding of the virtues. Charity and prudence serve distinct functions. In Thomas's position, a person can have the acquired virtues without having charity; such a person has a (...) virtuous life, but it is unified by prudence, not by charity. But why is such a person without charity? Is this absence of charity due simply to the absence of faith? Is this person with the four acquired virtues but without charity simply an unbeliever? Or is this person simply a rightly-ordered person whose lack of charity is due to the absence of personal moral goodness? Is such a person simply one who, in common parlance, is a well-integrated person but not necessarily a morally good one? In a word, is moral goodness a necessary condition for the acquired moral virtues? To answer this question we will begin with the contemporary distinction between goodness and rightness and then discuss the two virtues and their functions. In the final section we will relate our findings to present-day problems in the ethics of virtue. I. Goodness an_d Rightness Since Democritus we have realized that living rightly is not necessarily an indication of being good. Democritus noted that being good required not only that we act rightly but that we want 407 408 JAMES F. KEENAN, S.J. to act rightly.1 Over the centuries philosophers and theologians have consistently made reference to the fact that living rightly, or as they called it " doing the good," was not a sufficient condition for describing a person as good. From Ambrose and Augustine to the present, authors have insisted that a moral description of persons is more than a mere deduction from external activity.2 Some writers, however, did not simply make reference to this distinction, but rather spent considerable time in commenting on the insight involved. Kant, for instance, in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals distinguished from the beginning between action!> done out of duty (Handeln aus Pfiicht) and dutiful actions (pfiichtmiissiges H andeln). In attempting to describe the only thing which we can call " good," that is, the will, Kant argued that a dutiful act was only good if the act was done out of duty. For example, a state executioner who executes on account of his duty to execute is good and the action is good. But if the executioner performs the dutiful act on some other account, then the action is not good, though it is dutiful. Interestingly Kant did not consider whether an act not dutiful could be called good: Is an executioner who acts out of duty but botches the job still to be called good? George Moore in his Ethics made a similar point but for different reasons. Unlike Kant's interest in goodness, Moore wanted to describe a right action free of any consideration of an agent's motives and his solution was utilitarianism. In the process of separating the agent's action, Moore realized that the right act of a person with bad motivations involves a paradox: " A man may actually deserve the strongest moral condemnation for choosing an action which is morally right." 3 However, like 1 See his Fragmenta M oralia, no. 109, as cited in Stephen Toulmin, An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 170. 2 Bruno Schuller of Miinster provides ample historical evidence in his Die Begrundung sittlicher Urteile (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1980), 140. 3 George Moore, Ethics (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1912), 193-5. Cf. H. J. Paton, "The Alleged Independence of Goodness," in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, ed. P. Schilpp (New York: Tudor, 1952), 113-134; Richard Hare, The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). GOODNESS AND PRUDENCE AS RIGHTNESS 409 Kant, Moore did not discuss a person who sought to act rightly but who failed actually to perform a right action. Contemporary moral theology has carried the distinction further. Moral theologians like Bruno... (shrink)

Abortion: The morality of abortion, by P. Ramsey. The problem of abortion and the doctrine of double effect, by P. Foot. Whatever the consequences, by J. Bennett.--Sex: Sexual perversion, by T. Nagel. On sexual morality, by S. Ruddick.--Human rights and civil disobedience: Rights, human rights, and racial discrimination, by R. Wasserstrom. The justification of civil disobedience, by J. Rawls. Law and civil disobedience, by R. M. Dworkin.--Criminal punishment: The responsibility of criminals, by W. Kneale. Murder and the principles of punishment, (...) England and the United States, by H. L. A. Hart. Or else, by J. R. Lucas.--Violence and pacifism: What violence is, by N. Garver. Pacifism, a philosophical analysis, by J. Narveson.--War: War and murder, by G. E. M. Anscombe. On the morality of war, a preliminary inquiry, by R. Wasserstrom. Peace, by R. M. Hare.--Suicide and death: Suicide, by R. F. Holland. Death, by T. Nagel. Death, by M. Mothersill.--Bibliography (p. 386-390). (shrink)

This paper is a critique of R.M. Hare’s argument that rational universal prescriptions are equivalent to utilitarian judgments. The problem with Hare’s argument is his restrictive model of rationality. He succeeds in proving that awareness of certain facts is essential to making a fully rational universal prescription. But he fails to prove that other facts, such as the ultimate separateness of persons, are irrelevant. Once such facts are taken seriously, the utilitarian implication is invalidated.

The question, R. M. Hare concedes, “has assumed great importance in the thought of some philosophers, for example Cook Wilson and Collingwood.” A concession, because after a couple of sentences Hare concludes: “we need say no more about questions.” The implication is that in contrast with his two Oxford predecessors the topic has little importance in his philosophy. This isn’t quite so, it will be seen. But it is in line with a tendency among philosophers to relegate the topic, often (...) quite literally, to a footnote. They would be wiser to take questions more seriously; not least because any theory of meaning which connects meaning in some way to the concept of truth—as most do—has to explain how interrogative sentences, which cannot sensibly be said to express what is true or false, can yet have a meaning. Questions also present a challenge to the easy assumption that all thought is either true or false. Even to think of something, it can be argued, is to think that certain descriptions are true of it: to think of a cat is to think of something as having four legs, fur, and so forth. Collingwood’s way of meeting the challenge isn’t immediately apparent. In An Autobiography he does seem to reject the assumption. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gilbert Meilaender argues that Christian ethics must not be consequentialist. Though Meilaender does indicate some problems which may exist with certain consequentialist theories, those problems do not exclude all types of consequentialist theories from consideration as Christian ethical theories. A consequentialism like R. M. Hare’s offers virtually all the advantages Meilaender claims for his Christian deontological view. Moreover. Meilaender has overlooked certain advantages of consequentialism and certain disadvantages of the sort of deontological theory he espouses.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

To those of us who appreciated Peter Hare a systematic exploration of the themes of his work is sorely overdue. However, when considering the difficulty of providing a genuine intellectual narrative, one finds it hard to deny that the main problem arises in trying to bring his many intellectual strands together. Hare's self-styled "irenic impulse" and his affinity for uncovering relations suggest a figure best described in terms of the pluralism he so often defended. But fundamental to Hare's appreciation for (...) plurality was the idea that even with it unity is a hidden reward. His understanding and hope in this is what allowed him to navigate between opposed philosophical systems so frequently. It is also what led .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Little Eternities: Henry James’s Horatian Sense of Time KATHLEEN RILEY Summer’s lease hath all too short a date. —Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 On a visit to Bodiam Castle in Sussex in 1908, Henry James remarked to Edith Wharton: “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”1 The potency of those two words derives from their immediate evocation of (...) an arrested moment between the day’s halcyon perfection and its imminent dying fall. Small wonder that those same words were later used to mythologize an Edenic Edwardian England poised on the brink of war, to preserve in aspic the fancy of a gilded innocence and order, and the promise of “blue remembered hills,”2 careless of the teeming, tumultuous reality of an England already in the shadow of the Tree of Knowledge. James’s masterpiece of 1881, The Portrait of a Lady, begins with a luxuriously redolent depiction of a summer afternoon, of the hours before dusk that constitute a pleasurable little eternity, of the languorous rhythms and rituals of what Disraeli called “the sustained splendour of [a] stately life.”3 Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do,—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure.4 This passage, it strikes me, is essentially Horatian in its Epicurean delight in the passing moment. For the Augustan poet Horace, this delight, which is intrinsically elegiac, is expressed in the sympotic pleasures of wine and friendship, in the freedom aestivam sermone benigno tendere noctem (“to prolong the summer night with genial conversation,” Epistles i.5.11). For Henry James, it rests in “the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” in the lengthening shadows on an English lawn by “the reedy, silvery Thames” (PL 32). In both cases the evanescence of these simple pleasures is deeply felt and pleasure itself heightened by an undertone of melancholy, by a nostalgic apprehension of the present. LOCI AMOENI in his review of Augustus J. C. Hare’s Days near Rome (1875), Henry James commented: “The smallest pretext for quoting from Horace—the most quotable of the ancients— should always be cultivated.”5 His own facility for quoting from Horace was evident from his earliest published works, and belied an “extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous” education shuttling, at his father’s restless instigation, between New England, Britain and Continental Europe.6 James’s biographer, Leon Edel, recorded the family legend that William James (Henry’s Irish grandfather), “who was eighteen in 1789, when he set foot in the New World, 22 little eternities brought with him a ‘very small sum of money,’ a Latin grammar and a desire to visit the fresh battlefields of the Revolutionary War.”7 Young Henry’s instruction in Latin grammar seems to have begun in the Old World, under a private tutor in London in 1855, a Scotsman named Robert Thomson who later ran a small school in Edinburgh attended by Robert Louis Stevenson. It... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PARODY AND THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBABILITY IN THE APOLOGY by Thomas J. Lewis Over a century ago James Riddell pointed out that Socrates' defense speech in die Apology closely followed the standard form of Athenian forensic rhetoric. He called the Apology "artistic to the core," and he identified parts of "the subde rhetoric of this defense."1 Since then many scholars have explicated the rhetorical elements in Socrates' defense.2 (...) Their work has led in turn to recent attempts to integrate the rhetorical form into an overall understanding of the meaning and significance of the Apology? The puzzle to be solved is what to make of the fact that Socrates disclaims the ability and the intention to use rhetoric in a speech which is itself a rhetorical masterpiece. R. E. Allen raises the possibility thatby using the techniques ofrhetoric and at the same time denying that he is using them Socrates is dissembling or lying. However, Allen rejects this possibility and interprets Socrates' falsehood as only a surface or apparent falsehood. According to Allen it is ironic parody of a disreputable rhetoric which seeks to convince without concern for the truth.4 For Allen the object of the parody is base rhetoric in general, the type of rhetoric denounced by Socrates in the Gorgias as "rhetoric aiming at gratification and pleasure, and indifferent to truth and the good of the soul."5 Two subsequent articles, one by Kenneth Seeskin, the other by Douglas Feaver andJohn Hare, support the view that Socrates is parodying the debased form of rhetoric. However, they place somewhat different emphasis on the exact object of the parody. They argue that the object of Socrates' rhetorical parody is Gorgias' Pahmedes, rather than pandering rhetoric in general.6 After summarizing the many rhetorical similarities between Gorgias' Palamedes and Socrates' defense speech, Seeskin concludes that "Gorgias' Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 359-366 360Philosophy and Literature Palamedes is not a masterpiece of world literature; it is a collection of topoi—tried and true devices for winning acquittal... [whereas] despite his disclaimer, Socrates' speech is no amateur performance. On the contrary, he knew all the tricks of the trade and employed them with consummate skill" (p. 97). Seeskin uses Plato's Gorgias to explain how Socrates' rhetoric fits within an overall understanding of the Apology. He notes the two types ofrhetoric presented in the Gorgias: base rhetoric, a species of flattery which aims at gratification; and philosophic or true rhetoric which aims at improving the soul. Then Seeskin makes a crucial point. He insists it is not enough to distinguish between base rhetoric and philosophic rhetoric; there must be a way to identify a given instance of rhetoric as either base rhetoric or as philosophic rhetoric. Moreover, he cautions that distinguishing the one from the other is no easy task. "It is impossible to tell them apart on the basis of technique alone. Base rhetoric is no less polished for its baseness.... Nor can one tell them apart on the basis of their stated goals. Flattery succeeds only to the extent that it can pass itself off as something better" (p. 98). Thus, if Socrates and Palamedes employ the same rhetorical devices, Seeskin wonders how we can tell which type ofrhetoric is in the Apology. "Somewhere in the Apology of Socrates there ought to be a clue which allows one to distinguish his defense from the 'standard' defense composed by Gorgias" (p. 99). Seeskin finds the clue in the exordium, where Socrates denies that he is a skillful speaker: "Unless, of course, by a skillful speaker they mean one who speaks the truth. If that is what they mean, I would agree that I am an orator, though not after their pattern" (17b). Although Palamedes makes a comparable claim, Seeskin argues that Palamedes was concerned with appearance rather than truth, and that the key to appearance is the use of the argument from probability. According to Seeskin, Socrates does not rely on the argument from probability, whereas this argument permeates the Palamedes. "Again and again, the speaker tries to show that it would be implausible to suppose that anyone in his position did what he is accused of doing. How... (shrink)

Written in a jargon-free way, Body Matters provides a clear and accessible phenomenological critique of core assumptions in mainstream biomedicine and explores ways in which health and illness are experienced and interpreted differently in various socio-historical situations. By drawing on the disciplines of literature, cultural anthropology, sociology, medical history, and philosophy, the authors attempt to dismantle common presuppositions we have about human afflictions and examine how the methods of phenomenology open up new ways to interpret the body and to re-envision (...) therapy. (shrink)

Explores the theories of democratic individualism articulated in the works of the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey, and African-American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

Background Informed consent procedures for large population-based cohort studies should be comprehensive and easy-to-use. This is particularly challenging when participants from different socio-economic groups and multicultural ethnic backgrounds are involved. Recently, more and more studies have tried to use multimedia in informed consent procedures. We describe the development and testing of a digital informed consent app and elaborate on whether this may contribute to a comprehensive and practical procedure to obtain informed consent for public health research. Methods In a sample (...) of parents with young children, we used a mixed method approach to study the user experience of an informed consent app and evaluate whether it can be used to adequately inform people and register their consent. Through semi-structured interviews we investigated participants’ experiences with and opinions about the app, with a special focus on comprehensibility of the content and the usability of the app. Information retention questions were asked to evaluate to what extent participants could recall key aspects of the provided study information. Results The 30 participants in this study used the app between 4 and 15 min to give their consent. Overall, they found the app well-designed, informative and easy to use. To learn more about the study for which informed consent is asked, most of the participants chose to watch the animated film, which was generally found to convey information in a clear manner. The identification process was met with mixed reactions, with some feeling it as a secure way to give consent, while for others it contradicted their view of using data anonymously. Information retention questions showed that while all participants remembered various aspects of the study, fewer than half answered all four questions satisfactorily. Conclusion Our study shows that a well-designed informed consent app can be an effective tool to inform eligible participants and to record consents. Still, some issues remain, including trust barriers towards the identification procedure and lack of information retention in some participants. When implementing consent procedures that incorporate digital formats, it may be beneficial to also invest in a complementary face-to-face recruitment approach. (shrink)

We describe work in progress to conduct a systematic review of research on effects of arts-based programs for mental health in young people. We are at the stage of searching for relevant studies through major databases and screening extant systematic reviews for additional research which meet our inclusion criteria. At this stage, however, concerns have arisen regarding both the quality of existing primary studies and of recently published systematic reviews in this area of arts and health. As a case in (...) point, in this paper we focus on one research report on art therapy with adolescent girls and its inclusion in three systematic reviews. We demonstrate that the reviews fail to undertake a robust critique of the Bazargan and Pakdaman paper and that the paper and reviews are flawed. Drawing on recent criticisms of systematic reviewing, we consider the value of proceeding with our systematic review as initially planned. (shrink)

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)