Comments on the agency papers by B. D. Slife , M. Gergen , R. N. Williams , and G. S. Howard . In response to these papers, M. S. Richardson states that the construct of agency/empowerment is replaced with embodied empowerment, the idea of which needs to be developed in a moral concept. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Discusses concepts of agency and free will from the perspective of clinical practice and feminism. Following a definition of agency that locates it in a relational context , the problematized nature of subjective experience is explored from both a feminist and a psychoanalytic perspective. These considerations set the stage for examining the contradictions and dilemmas of clinical practice devoted to individual change and improving lives as well as political values and ideology devoted to social change, suggesting the history of incest (...) in Western culture and practice as an example. The need to act/practice despite uncertainty is acknowledged, relating the position of the practitioner to the responsibilities of being a parent. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Researchers interested in children's understanding of mind have claimed that the ability to ascribe beliefs and intentions is a late development, occurring well after children have learned to speak and comprehend the speech of others. On the other hand, there are convincing arguments to show that verbal communication requires the ability to attribute beliefs and intentions. Hence if one accepts the findings from research into children's understanding of mind, one should predict that young children will have severe difficulties in verbal (...) communication. Conversely, if this prediction fails, this casts doubt on the claim that young children lack meta-representational skills. Using insights from Relevance Theory, an experiment was designed to test children's ability to recover a speaker's intended referent in situations in which the speaker's words underdetermine the referent. Results suggest that children's skills are comparable to those of untutored adults in similar situations. Thus this study indirectly casts doubt on the claim that young children lack meta-representational skills. (shrink)

This paper describes a discourse analysis of the process of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) in the recovery from depression. It demonstrates how IPT is an effective treatment strategy for mental health nurses to utilise in the treatment of depression. The discourse analysis highlights how the development of more meaningful subject positions enables one woman to recover from her depression. The process of recovery is underpinned by an understanding of women's depression as promoted by contemporary social and cultural expectations for detachment and (...) reflexivity. This paper shows how IPT provides an opportunity for recovery from depression for one woman by facilitating a reconstruction of her subject positions in relation to others. The discourse analysis revealed that the therapist facilitated this through the use of a range of techniques: seeking information, exploring beliefs/values/assumptions, exploring communication patterns, exploring affective responses and exploring alternative subject positions. (shrink)

Family Medicine Groups (FMGs) are the most recently developed primary care organizations in Quebec (Canada). Nurses within FMGs play a central role for patients with chronic diseases (CD). However, this complex role and the nursing activities related to this role vary across FMGs. Inadequate knowledge of nursing activities limits the implementation of exemplary nursing practices. This study aimed to describe FMG nursing activities with patients with CD and to describe the facilitators and barriers to these activities. A multiple‐case study was (...) performed with ten nurses practicing among patients with CD in FMGs. Five data sources were used to provide an in‐depth description of nursing activities and the facilitators and barriers to the development of these activities. After qualitative data analysis, findings show that nursing activities are clustered into five domains: Global assessment of the patient, Care management, Health promotion, Nurse–physician collaboration, and Planning services for patients with CD. Activities vary depending on contextual factors identified in each case. This multiple‐case study provides a clear description of nursing activities with patients with CD. There is a need for improved nursing activities and expertise in domains of activities that are less present in FMGs, such as case management and interprofessional collaboration. (shrink)

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the claim that online communication technologies are detrimental to off‐line communication practices., – This paper is based on material from focus groups with students from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University, and in‐depth interviews from a mixture of employed people and students. The breakdown is as follows: three focus groups in total are ran, two cohorts of participants were students from University of Cambridge, and the third group from ARU. (...) Six individuals aged between 21 and 36 were interviewed in‐depth on their Facebook use. Questions relating to personal use of Facebook are asked. All names of participants have been changed., – The research findings show that opportunities for communication are increased by using Facebook. Facebook use also impacts on how other types of communicative technologies are used – such as the phone and email. From the small participant sample, it is founded that off‐line encounters were a prerequisite for a friend connection to be made online in Facebook. Finally, it is founded that the participants rarely interact with the majority of their Facebook friends and it is this dormant archive of relationships that hold the most interest as it provides an archive of relationships that would have dissipated without these technologies., – The key value of the paper lies in understanding this technology as an archive of human relationships. (shrink)

Surgical devices are often marketed before there is good evidence of their safety and effectiveness. Our paper discusses the ethical issues associated with the early marketing and use of new surgical devices from the perspectives of the six groups most concerned. Health Canada, which is responsible for licensing new surgical devices, should amend their requirements to include rigorous clinical trials that provide data on effectiveness and safety for each new product before it is marketed. Industry should comply with all Health (...) Canada requirements to obtain licenses for new products. Until Health Canada requires effectiveness and safety data, industry should cooperate with physicians in appropriate studies before releasing new products and should make balanced presentations of all the available evidence. Surgeons should, before using a new surgical device, assess the evidence on its effectiveness and safety and ensure they are properly trained and competent in using the device. Surgeons should provide their patients with an evaluation of the available evidence and inform them about possible complications and the surgeon's level of experience with the new device. Patients, who should be given an honest evaluation of the available evidence, possible complications, and the surgeon's experience, should be encouraged to evaluate the evidence and information to their own satisfaction to ensure that fully informed consent is given. Health institutions, responsible for regulating practice within their walls, should review new devices for safety, effectiveness, and economic impacts, before allowing their use. They should also limit the use of new surgical devices to surgeons trained and competent in the new technology. Professional societies should provide guidance on the early adoption of new surgical devices and technologies. We urge all those involved in the development, licensing, and use of new surgical devices to aim for higher ethical standards to protect the health and safety of patients requiring surgery. The lowest acceptable ethical standard would require device manufacturers to provide surgeons with accurate and timely information on the efficacy and safety of their products, allowing surgeons and patients to evaluate the evidence (and the significance of information not yet available) before surgery. (shrink)

For years, both psychologists and the general public have been fascinated with the notion that there are gender differences in cognitive abilities; even now, flashy cover stories exploiting this idea dominate major news magazines, while research focuses on differences in verbal, mathematical, spatial, and scientific abilities across gender. This new volume in the Counterpoints series not only summarizes and addresses the validity of such research, but also questions its ideology and consequences. Why do we search so intently for these differences? (...) And what are the social and cultural implications of this relentless emphasis? Do biological mechanisms, in fact, contribute to the male-female differences in cognition? These are just a few of the questions generated by this controversial topic as it is debated throughout the book. (shrink)

Genetic modification of trees has the potential to change our forests forever, yet there has been little publicly available information or debate on this important topic. Ethical analysis of genetic modification of plants to date has been focussed mainly on food and feed crops and pharmaceutical production. The purpose of this paper is to examine one major ethical issue arising in connection with the genetic modification of trees, the necessity to examine the practice in its full scientific, social, economic, political (...) and environmental context. It is argued that if this is not done, important factors that play a role in a through ethical critique will be overlooked. The analysis focuses mainly on the Canadian situation, but there are implications for other timber-producing nations as well. The paper concludes that a thorough ethical critique must take into account the ends for which biotechnology is being pursued. (shrink)

Genetic modification of trees has the potential to change our forests forever, yet there has been little publicly available information or debate on this important topic. Ethical analysis of genetic modification of plants to date has been focussed mainly on food and feed crops and pharmaceutical production. The purpose of this paper is to examine one major ethical issue arising in connection with the genetic modification of trees, the necessity to examine the practice in its full scientific, social, economic, political (...) and environmental context. It is argued that if this is not done, important factors that play a role in a through ethical critique will be overlooked. The analysis focuses mainly on the Canadian situation, but there are implications for other timber-producing nations as well. The paper concludes that a thorough ethical critique must take into account the ends for which biotechnology is being pursued. (shrink)

Over several years, genetic studies in the model system, Drosophila melanogastor, have uncovered genes that when mutated, lead to a block in myoblast fusion. Analyses of these gene products have suggested that Arp2/3‐mediated regulation of the actin cytoskeleton is crucial to myoblast fusion in the fly. Recent advances in imaging in Drosophila embryos, both in fixed and live preparations, have led to a new appreciation of both the three‐dimensional organization of the somatic mesoderm and the cell biology underlying myoblast fusion. (...) BioEssays 30:423–431, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The purpose of this research report is twofold: First, we analyze a complex of attitudes about rape myths, adversarial sexual beliefs, and gender-role conservatism; and second, we evaluate the impact of rape-education intervention strategies on American college students' attitudes. Using the Solomon four-group design, we randomly assigned 14 classes of Sociology 101 students to three different treatment conditions: a live rape-education workshop, a video of the workshop, and a control group. We found significant gender differences in students' attitudes on all (...) the scales, with women being more knowledgeable about rape, less likely to blame the victim, and less accepting of adversarial sexual beliefs and gender-role conservatism. Most important, we found that within the limits of the study, rape-education intervention works in changing some attitudes about rape for both men and women students. We examine the impact of the different educational strategies and explore curricular implications, including the need to teach about rape within a feminist context. (shrink)

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence. By situating (...) discourse about reconciliation within the context of Girardian thought, it becomes clear that like Peter who vowed he would never deny Jesus but ended up doing it three times any of us is susceptible to the siren call of angry resentment and retaliation. It is with a profound awareness of the power of violence that the emergence of mimetic discourse around reconciliation takes on particular urgency.". (shrink)

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence.

Feminist theory is a central strand of cultural studies. This book explores the history of feminist cultural studies from the early work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, through the 1970s Women's Liberation Movement. It also provides a comprehensive introduction to the contemporary key approaches, theories and debates of feminist theory within cultural studies, offering a major re-mapping of the field. It will be an essential text for students taking courses within both cultural studies (...) and women's studies departments. (shrink)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hypatia’s Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers ed. by Linda Lopez McAllisterSue M. WeinbergLinda Lopez McAllister, editor. Hypatia’s Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv + 345. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $22.50.Hypatia: born in the fourth century A.D.: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, teacher; brutally murdered in Alexandria in 415 A.D—whether for holding religious views regarded as heretical or because she (...) was a woman who dared to be a scholar and teacher remains a matter of speculation. Today, she gives her name to the journal for feminist philosophy. She is a symbol for those women who, over the centuries, have struggled to be part of the philosophical life of their time.Until very recently, the centuries that separated Hypatia from the present were assumed to have been a philosophical desert for women. But times have changed. Hypatia’s Daughters is a sign of this change. It contains eighteen articles on seventeen philosophers: Hypatia; Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise, and Christine de Pisan from the Middle Ages; Elizabeth of Bohemia, Sor Juana de la Cruz, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham, Catharine Trotter, Belle van Zuylen and Mary Wollstonecraft from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Anne Doyle Wheeler and Harriet Taylor Mill from the nineteenth; Charlotte Perkins Oilman, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, and Angela Davis from the late nineteenth century into contemporary times. Few are known as well as they deserve, but many names are familiar even to non-specialists. Their ideas, however, are another matter.The collection in no way constitutes a definitive selection of women philosophers; those discussed are not presented as the most significant women philosophers in the history of philosophy. (A different kind of study would be necessary for evaluations of that kind.) The women here studied have little in common as a group; they wrote on many topics of philosophical concern; their views and their supporting reasoning differ. Further, as the subjects of the articles differ in their ideas, so do the contributors’ approaches and their methods of studying those ideas differ. These differences are the strengths of a collection that is stimulating, enlightening, provocative. The following examples indicate their range.Andrea Nye examines the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard and, in a second article, of Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes. Heloise and Elizabeth are usually regarded as passive followers or, at best, no more than serious questioners seeking answers of their correspondents. Nye’s fresh look at the Heloise-Abelard correspondence finds not only important differences between two ways of thinking, but also sees already underlying their disagreement what she calls the “macroquestion” of philosophy’s future: philosophy as “a professional discipline independent of political or social concerns or... an ongoing critical and cultural discourse.” (25) Elizabeth’s persistent questions to Descartes reveal ideas that challenge his views, especially on moral issues and physiological-psychological [End Page 164] phenomena; these are views that have a greater complexity than the basic issue of mind-body interaction that is usually identified as central to their exchange.Writing on Harriet Taylor Mill, Jo Ellen Jacobs examines changing attitudes towards her subject, beginning with views of Taylor Mill’s contemporaries and moving through the decades into our time. She finds parallels between criticisms of Taylor Mill and attitudes towards the so-called intellectual woman. In times encouraging of women, Taylor Mill is regarded as having made important contributions to the development of J. S. Mill’s thinking, in addition to writing and speaking about her own ideas and positions that did not always follow those of J. S. Mill. In less encouraging times, her significance tends to be minimized.Hannah Arendt is not usually thought of as a feminist. Joanne Cutting-Gray, through her discussion of Arendt’s early book on Rahel Varnhagen, develops implications of that study for Arendt as a “feminist thinker,” in particular through her focus on “the politics of alterity.” Cutting-Gray finds in the Varnhagen biography “an analogy between Jewish and female alterity [that] can stretch our understanding of women and politics.” (281)And there is more, much more: Martha Brandt Bolton’s scholarly examination of the philosophical works... (shrink)

In 1956 Jacques Lacan proposed as interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter" that at once challenged literary theorists and revealed a radically new conception of psychoanalysis. Lacan's far-reaching claims about language and truth provoked a vigorous critique by Jacques Derrida, whose essay in turn has spawned further responses from Barbara Johnson, Jane Gallop, Irene Harvey, Norman Holland, and others. The Purloined Poe brings Poe's story together with these readings to provide, in the words of the editors, "a structured exercuse (...) in the elaboration of textual interpretation. The Purloined Poe reprints the full text of Poe's story, followed by Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter,'" along with extensive commentary by the editors. Marie Bonaparte's and Shoshana Felman's discussions of traditional and contemporary approaches to "psychoanalysing" texts precede Alan Bass's new translation of Derrida's "Purveyor of Truth." The subsequent essays join the Lacan-Derrida debate and offer alternative readings by literary theorists, philosophers, psychologists, and psychoanalysts. The Purloined Poe convenes much of the most important current scholarship on "The Purloined Letter" and presents a rich sampling of poststructuralist discourse. (shrink)

The paper builds on the postulate of “myths we live by,” which shape our imaginative life (and hence our social expectations), but which are also open to reflective study and reinvention. It applies this principle, in particular, to the concepts of love and vulnerability. We are accustomed to think of the condition of vulnerability in an objectifying and distancing way, as something that affects the bearers of specific (disadvantaged) social identities. Against this picture, which can serve as a pretext for (...) paternalist and controlling attitudes to the groups in question – notably to women – Anderson urges us to reimagine our vulnerability as a condition not merely of exposure to violence but of openness to mutual affection, love, and friendship. Hegel’s celebrated image of the owl of Minerva, which takes wing only with the coming of dusk, suggests an association of (philosophical) wisdom with negativity – with the experience of death or loss. Anderson, by contrast, proposes an alternative and more hopeful image of the dawn of enlightenment, in the guise of new ethical dispositions shaped by an emancipatory (and so, no longer an oppressive or sexist) conception of our capacity for love. Her main interlocutors or influences in this piece are Judith Butler (who contributes the idea of a “relational ontology”), Michèle Le Doeuff, and Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Seeks to find the appreciative, positive inquiry aspects of and similarities in the papers by B. D. Slife , R. N. Williams , M. S. Richardson , and G. S. Howard without critical academic judgment, applauding the removal, although insufficient, of the linear time metaphor, suggesting the allowance of agency as a characteristic of people-in-relations, and lamenting the commentary gap on relational unit of client and therapist. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

This first volume of The Collected Works of Rudolf Carnap includes Carnap’s published writings from 1921 when he submitted his dissertation Der Raum (Space) in Jena to Bruno Bauch to 1926 the year he completed his habilitation in Vienna under Moritz Schlick. It thereby documents Carnap’s early writings during his formative years that culminated in his first major publication Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World) which appeared in 1928 and will be included in the second (...) volume. Fourteen volumes are planned in total. In his foreword Richard Creath, the general editor, states that the series will include “all of the books and papers Carnap authorized for publication in his lifetime.” (viii). (shrink)

Carnaps Denken wurde während seines Studiums und der Arbeit an seiner Dissertation von Neukatianischen Motiven beeinflusst, von denen er sich nach seiner Habilitation in Wien (1926) zunehmend distanzierte. Er besuchte in Freiburg bei Heinrich Rickert (1911/1912) und in Jena (1913/14) bei Bruno Bauch Lehrveranstaltungen zur Philosophie. Außerdem besuchte er in Freiburg bei Jonas Cohn Lehrveranstaltungen zur experimentellen Psychologie. Bei Bauch reichte er 1920 eine Arbeit mit dem Titel Welche philosophische Bedeutung hat das Problem der „Grundlegung der Geometrie“ für die Lehramtsprüfung (...) und 1921 seine darauf aufbauende Dissertation Der Raum. Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftslehre ein. Rickert war das Haupt der von Wilhelm Windelband begründeten Südwestdeutschen Schule des Neukantianismus, zu der auch Cohn und Bauch gezählt werden. Bauch war jedoch auch von der von Hermann Cohen begründeten Marburger Schule des Neukantianismus, deren herausragenste Vertreter Paul Natorp und Ernst Cassirer sind, beeinflusst. Vor allem Natorps Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften (1910a) und Cassirers Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff (1910) beeinflussten Carnaps Verständnis der methodischen Grundlagen der Mathematik und der Physik (Richardson 1998, 115-117, 138-139; Mormann 2000, 44-46). In persönlichem Kontakt war Carnap seit seinem Umzug nach Buchenbach Anfang der 1920er Jahre auch mit dem Rickert-Schüler Broder Christiansen. (shrink)

This first volume of The Collected Works of Rudolf Carnap includes Carnap’s published writings from 1921 when he submitted his dissertation Der Raum (Space) in Jena to Bruno Bauch to 1926 the year he completed his habilitation in Vienna under Moritz Schlick. It thereby documents Carnap’s early writings during his formative years that culminated in his first major publication Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World) which appeared in 1928 and will be included in the second (...) volume. Fourteen volumes are planned in total. In his foreword Richard Creath, the general editor, states that the series will include “all of the books and papers Carnap authorized for publication in his lifetime.” (viii). (shrink)