Ingarden conceives ontology as a philosophia prima, which deals with being as purely possible. It is an intuitive and a priori analysis of the content of the relevant ideas. It consists of three parts: existential, formal and material ontology. Existential ontology deals with the possible modes of existence. Problems of factual existence pertain to metaphysics, which is a separate branch of theoretical philosophy, based on ontology.

Мета. Стаття спрямована на переосмислення ключових ідей екзистенціального аналізу для сучасної теорії і практики виховання. Теоретичний базис. У дослідженні було використано такі теоретичні методи: аналіз, синтез, порівняння та узагальнення фундаментальних положень екзистенціального аналізу як однієї з течій сучасного психоаналізу. Наукова новизна. Охарактеризовано екзистенціальний аналіз (дазайн-аналіз) Л. Бінсвангера і логотерапію В. Франкла для їх подальшого впровадження в педагогічну теорію і практику. Наголошено, що положення екзистенціального аналізу в освіті спрямовані на допомогу дитині в пошуку цілей і навчальної мотивації в умовах швидко змінюваного (...) світу. Доведено, що екзистенціальний аналіз фокусується на ідеї повернення до традиційного бачення педагога як провідника дітей на шляху до їх самореалізації і пізнання себе. Висновки. Відзначено, що "екзистенціальне спілкування" учителя з учнями допомагає останнім переживати новий життєвий досвід, відтворити його сенс і планувати своє майбутнє в перспективі. Ідеї екзистенціального аналізу спонукають до врахування в педагогічній практиці етичного компонента, який спрямований на передбачення можливих ризиків у житті, вибір способів для досягнення планів, сприйняття обмеженості бажань і пояснення розумної насолоди від життя, без зайвих надмірностей. І щоб досягти цієї мети, надано рекомендації щодо роботи з мотивацією дітей, необхідністю навчати учнів визначати своє місце в системі суспільних відносин та обирати професію для служіння істині й людям. (shrink)

Binszuanger's Daseinsanalyse is, first and foremost, an attempt to explain the close links that may exist between how to understand, interpret, and experience. To achieve this goal, it constantly evolves through a to and fro movement between two kinds of thought processes, that is, Husserl's and Heidegger's. It sways around the central question of living connections that take place between the experiences within the intimate "stories" of one's life and the very same connections between my own experience and that of (...) the other person. Of course, it runs into the problem of misunderstanding, which is typical of that very process and comes back whenever one is confronted by a theory of perception. The present authors question once again such an ontological primacy with reference to Wilhelm Schapp's philosophy. According to the latter, story and not perception comes first. Things are valid only because they surge within one's story, and it is story that holds person's seat. The person thus becomes described as being entangled amidst stories. The authors show that one can cast a new light on Binswanger's project by following Schapp on a narrative level: Connections living through experiences are connections between stories. The encounter with the psychiatric patient is understood in terms of mutual "entanglement. " Such a point of view leads the authors to analyze existential analysis through the new criteria of a strictly narrative analysis. (shrink)

The paper is an interdisciplinary study, which describes the results of applying phenomenological analysis in Sartre’s analysis of being, as well as the main emphases in Merleau-Ponty’s explorations of body/consciousness problem. It also shows the possibilities of applying the phenomenological approach in psychotherapy, in particular in the logotherapy of Victor Frankl. The author’s intention is to show the relationship between the intentional consciousness with its possibilities and limits and the conception of phenomena, which differs strongly with the respective (...) thinkers. While for Sartre the phenomenon is a means of selfalienation and for Ponty a means of embedding the embodied consciousness, with Frankl the phenomenon is a medium of meaning for the intentional consciousness itself. (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to the object ontology. The general approach assumed in the investigation is that of Roman Ingarden's The Controversy Over the Existence of the World where an object is the subject-of-properties. The analysis of the form and the mode of existence of properties leads to the rejection of both negative and general properties. Each property is an individual qualitative moment of a particular object. Its form reveals existential heteronomy: the quality of the property is (...) not immanent but refers to the object. The subject of properties has not its own qualitative content: its form is just the internal causality establishing the unity of an object. An object is not causally isolated from other objects, but external causation differs from internal either by being ramified in case of the composition and destruction of an object or reciprocal in case of interaction between coexisting objects. (shrink)

What is characteristic of being aParkinson’s patient? This article intends toanswer this question by means of an analysis ofnovels about people with Parkinson’s disease,personal accounts, and scientific publications.The texts were analyzed from anexistential-phenomenological perspective, usingan adapted version of the existential analysis.Being a Parkinson’s patient is apparentlycharacterized by an existential paradox: lifeappears simultaneously immobile andunpredictably whimsical. This may manifestitself in the person’s corporeality, in hisbeing-in-time and in-space, in his relating tothings and events, his life-world, and in hisbeing-together-with-others (...) as an individual.Finally, some specific characteristics of beinga Parkinson’s patient are described that may berelevant for purposes of adequate care, as isto be specified by further research. (shrink)

This paper attempts to be a contribution to the epistemological project of explaining complex conceptual structures departing from more basic ones. The central thesis of the paper is that there are what I call “functionally structured concepts”, these are non-harmonic concepts in Dummett’s sense that might be legitimized if there is a function that justifies the tie between the inferential connection the concept allows us to trace. Proving this requires enhancing the russellian existential analysis of definite descriptions to (...) apply to functions and using this in proving the legitimacy of such concepts. The utility of the proposal is shown for the case of thick ethical terms and an attempt is made to use it in explaining the development of natural numbers. This last move could allow us to go one step lower in explaining the genesis of natural numbers while maintaining the notion of abstract numbers as higher order entities. (shrink)

DEATH is one of the central themes of existentialist writing. This is to be expected since the focal point of all its reflection is human existence. Existentialism explores the innermost depths of experienced selfhood. Inevitably, the authentic self must face the problem of man’s origin and destiny or, in Heideggerian terms, the beginning and ending of his Being-in-the-world. Death is a profoundly human problem, inseparably bound up with the psychological and ontological structure of the human mode of being or Dasein.

Available for the first time in English, this work explores a range of mental disorders in the context of Frankl's theory of human motivation. Skillfully translated and featuring extensive annotation, this English language edition remains true to the original while updating assessment and treatment protocols to be compatible with 21st century medicine. As the title suggests, On the Theory and Therapy of Mental Disorders applies a theoretical treatise to the practical treatment of variety of disorders. This long-awaited addition to the (...) body of English language literature introduces Viktor Frankl's clinical insights to a new generation of mental health professionals, and has much to offer to practitioners of all levels of experience. (shrink)

What does it mean to be human? This book explores that age-old question and provides a basis for rethinking the nature of all living beings. This book will leave you with a new understanding of yourself and your existence in the world as well as the nature of all beings.

Being a substitute in sport appears to contradict the rationale behind being involved in that sport, especially in those sports whereby substitutes frequently remain unused or are brought on to the field of play for the final moments of that game. For the coach or manager, substitutes function as a way to improve the team achieving a particular end, namely to win the game; whether to replace an injured or tired player, to change a team’s structure or tactics, to complete (...) a specialised manoeuvre (such as goal kicking in American football or a short corner in hockey), or to run down the clock. Whether a substitute is afforded an opportunity of playing the game appears to be directed by others; arguably if one had a choice in the matter one would chose to be on the field of play rather than off it. Nevertheless, the Existentialist position is that our situation is always inexorably one that is freely chosen. To argue that one has not freely chosen one’s position is to be ‘inauthentic’. Furthermore, to conceptualise one’s manifestation and to be treated by others as a thing ‘in-itself’ – such as a substitute - is to fall into ‘bad faith’. Culbertson (1) has already argued that elite competitive sport is an arena which promotes rather than avoids bad faith due to its constituent factors. Culbertson’s frame of reference primarily applied to sporting events that involve individuals competing in co-active, parallel competition - such as athletics, swimming or weightlifting - whereby bad faith is generated via a tacit acceptance of ever improving and quantifiable performance. The purpose of this paper is a continuation of such an enquiry but with a redirection of focus away from parallel competition byindividuals, towards team competitions which are, by nature, less concerned with an unremitting contest against time, distance or some other measurable concept. This paper sets out to examine the nature of the substitute in sport, who appears to be equally liable to find herself being ‘inauthentic’ and/or in ‘bad-faith’. It attempts to consider the nature of these concepts and offer direction as to how substitutes can attempt to realize the Existential ideal. (shrink)

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as (...) a legitimate field of scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)

This essay compares Freud’s and Heidegger’s concept of Angst. Heidegger’s and Freud’s interpretations are guided by different aims: A) in “Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety” Freud tries to define the concept of anxiety as a main element in neurosis; B) Heidegger’s notion plays a major role in gaining the existential meaning of Dasein. Despite the differences, this essay claims that it is possible to discover a common anthropo-existential interpretation. Anxiety marks the anthropological and existential passage from the non-distinction (...) of the pre-subjective life to the distinction that emerges from the progressive differentiation of the subject from the world. From such a distinction originates the conflict between the tendency to regain non-distinction and the necessity of multiplicity. In Freud, anxiety is the price for the renunciation of indistinction; in Heidegger, anxiety is encountered when this price is recognized as unavoidable. This is the core problem that this study takes into account in order to show the existential and anthropological role of anxiety. I will proceed with an analysis of Freud’s interpretation of anxiety, and then with the Heideggerian notion. The third part points out the affinity between them. Furthermore, the paper focuses on the dis-chronic temporality that characterizes the trauma of birth. In order to show the latter, we compare the temporalities of trauma and aesthetic experience. To perform this temporal analysis, the text adopts a phenomenological viewpoint. (shrink)

The event of the pandemic that started in 2020 fed an affective phenomenon known as pandemic fatigue, medically near to “chronic fatigue syndrome”. Psychologi- cal explanation of the phenomenon provides a first approach that is enriched with phenomenological description and analysis of it as existential feeling in the present. This term stresses the bodily reference of the kind of existential moods displayed by Heidegger and contributes to a better description of the fatigue phenomenon relying on Levinas’ study. (...) Present and profound fatigue is therefore shown as a feeling of tiredness that ties existence to a no-being-possible or no-being-able for oneself to do what it was possible before, i.e. in the pre-pandemic past. Besides the description, phenomenological analysis of the bond between profound boredom —as studied by Heidegger— and pandemic existential fatigue stresses different levels in the ontological understanding of this last one and its harmful feature. (shrink)

Peirce considered the principal business of logic to be the analysis of reasoning. He argued that the diagrammatic system of Existential Graphs, which he had invented in 1896, carries the logical analysis of reasoning to the furthest point possible. The present paper investigates the analytic virtues of the Alpha part of the system, which corresponds to the sentential calculus. We examine Peirce’s proposal that the relation of illation is the primitive relation of logic and defend the view (...) that this idea constitutes the fundamental motive of philosophy of notation both in algebraic and graphical logic. We explain how in his algebras and graphs Peirce arrived at a unifying notation for logical constants that represent both truth-function and scope. Finally, we show that Shin’s argument for multiple readings of Alpha graphs is circular. (shrink)

Psychiatric phenomenology emerged from the willingness to spread Husserl’s program of going back to the things themselves into the psychiatric field. However, what this initial will then became is not very clear. We show that if this will to go back to the things themselves really enabled to bring phenomenology and psychiatry together (especially by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger), the thing to whom we have to go back changed over time: first conceived as the experience lived by people with (...) a psychiatric disorder, it was then conceived as the psychiatric disorder itself. We show that both of these ideas are inadequate. Our thesis is that psychiatric phenomenology has to be considered as belonging to the hermeneutical field (as defined by Ricoeur and Gadamer). We show that this hypothesis leads to a more insightful understanding of what is psychiatric phenomenology and what status we should concede to it. (shrink)

Background: According to ethical guidelines, healthcare professionals should be able to provide care that allows for the patients’ values, customs and beliefs, and the existential issues that are communicated through them. One widely discussed issue is existential loneliness. However, much of the debate dealing with existential loneliness concludes that both the phenomenon and the concept are quite vague. Aim: To clarify what constitutes existential loneliness, and to describe its lived experiences. A further aim was to provide (...) a definition of existential loneliness that can function as a tool for identifying the phenomenon and for differentiating it from other kinds of loneliness. Method: A literature review including theoretical and empirical studies. Different search strategies were used to gather the articles included in the study. The analysis of the empirical studies had an interpretative approach. The articles were also analysed with the aim of providing a definition of existential loneliness. This was done by means of criteria such as language, uniqueness, theory and usefulness. This study is not empirical and does therefore not require an ethics review. Results: The analysis resulted in two main characteristics. The first one was perceiving oneself as inherently separated (disconnected) from others and from the universe. The second one brings out emotional aspects of EL, such as isolation, alienation, emptiness and a feeling of being abandoned. The empirical findings were divided into two categories: experiences of EL and circumstances in which EL arises. A definition of EL is also suggested, based on the two main characteristics identified. Conclusion: In order to meet patients’ needs, it is an ethical duty for healthcare staff to be able to recognise experiences of EL, that is, to communicate with the patients about these experiences in an appropriate manner. This in turn demands knowledge about existential issues and skills to deal with them. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine la manière dont Michel Foucault se rapporte à la psychologie et à la psychopathologie phénoménologiques dans les années 1950, à la lumière des nouvelles sources documentaires que nous avons aujourd’hui à notre disposition. Notre contribution se concentre en particulier sur le manuscrit inédit de l’un des cours donnés par Foucault à l’université de Lille entre 1952 et 1954 : le cours sur « Binswanger et la phénoménologie ». L’analyse de ce cours, conçu par Foucault dans le contexte (...) d’une réflexion philosophique sur le problème anthropologique de la psychopathologie, nous permettra enfin de restituer à Foucault la place qui lui revient dans le domaine de la « philosophie de la psychiatrie ». (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the notational difference between Beta Existential Graphs, the graphical notation for quantificational logic invented by Charles S. Peirce at the end of the 19th century, and the ordinary notation of first-order logic. Peirce thought his graphs to be “more diagrammatic” than equivalently expressive languages for quantificational logic. The reason of this, he claimed, is that less room is afforded in Existential Graphs than in equivalently expressive languages for different ways of representing (...) the same fact. The reason of this, in turn, is that Existential Graphs are a non-linear, occurrence-referential notation. As a non-linear notation, each graph corresponds to a class of logically equivalent but syntactically distinct sentences of the ordinary notation of first-order logic that are obtained by permuting those elements that in the graphs lie in the same area. As an occurrence-referential notation, each Beta graph corresponds to a class of logically equivalent but syntactically distinct sentences of the ordinary notation of first-order logic in which the identity of reference of two or more variables is asserted. In brief, Peirce’s graphs are more diagrammatic than the linear, type-referential notation of first-order logic because the function that translates the latter to the graphs does not define isomorphism between the two notations. (shrink)

The article presents a portrait and analysis of the existential-psychocultural situation in postmodern Sweden. Drawing from recent research exploring psychology of religion and existential worldviews, and the Swedish findings from the international World Values Survey, an argument is made for thinking about existential function and dysfunction as public health issues. This is portrayed against the background of Sweden as one of the most secularized countries and simultaneously a country with one of the most encompassing welfare systems. (...) Psychology of religion's updated role here would be to take responsibility for identifying and assessing the categories of function and dysfunction for an existential public health system. This role would also include the planning of policy for societal existential wellbeing, as well as planning prevention and intervention efforts for avoiding existential epidemiology. This new role fits well with public health's third revolution agenda focusing on health, wellbeing and quality of life. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a preliminary multidisciplinary research of the specificities of youth’s response to various descriptors. Using the semiotic, in-depth psychological, theological and mathematical analysis of the collected associative chains, the author compares the responses of youth representatives to religious and ethical terms with colloquial lexemes, as well as determines sensitivity to these terms and proclivity for their logical and sensory-emotional perception. Particularly, method of semantic multiplication allows identifying strong and weak descriptors of semiosis under consideration. (...) The author determines the trends that outline a number of structural and psychodynamic characteristics of psychic reality of modern Russian youth. The following conclusions were made in the course of this research: 1. Sensitivity (and corresponding awareness) to religious descriptors was demonstrated by less than half of the respondents, and a fifth of the entire sample of terms appeared to be unfamiliar to the respondents; 2. The analysis of ethical associative chains at the level of interpretation, indicated the existence of such a phenomenon as “indeterminate religiosity”, which implies a certain spiritual pursuit, which at the moment does not comply with the familiar to a respondent religions traditions; 3. The acquired data, on the one hand, correspond to the classic “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs”, while on the other hand, spiritual pursuit of respondents and simultaneously scarce character of “existential” associations may testify in favor of the dominance of “ethical-spiritual” paradigm in psychic reality of respondents (which also complies with the Maslow’s research of later period in the area of “existential needs” and “peak experiences”; 4. All of the aforementioned means that the key to interaction with modern youth (including didactical and educational) is the paradigm of ethical values, which can also be connected with a latent spiritual pursuit. (shrink)

This article examines the lasting phenomenological consequences of inhabiting “spaces” of exception by rethinking the operation of sovereign violence therein. Taking as its point of departure Giorgio Agamben’s suggestion that the ‘state of exception’ is the ‘rule’ of modern politics, I argue that arbitrary sovereign violence has taken the place of the ‘sovereign decision’ of Carl Schmitt’s original theory. However, recognizing that it is neither enough simply to articulate the institutional grid of intelligibility of the state of exception nor expose (...) the logics of sovereignty that make possible arbitrary violence, it draws on phenomenology, affect theory, and trauma studies to reorient our focus from the sovereign to the subject upon whom sovereign power is executed. Ultimately it proposes a new understanding of modern subjecthood as one of existential insecurity generated by the ‘new age of anxiety’ permeating social and political life today. (shrink)

This article focuses on existential feelings. To begin with, it depicts how they differ from other affective phenomena and what type of intentionality they manifest. Furthermore, a detailed analysis shows that existential feelings can be subdivided, first, into elementary and nonelementary varieties, and second, into three foci of primary relatedness: oneself, the social environment, and the world as such. Eventually, five strategies of emotion regulation are examined with respect to their applicability to existential feelings. In the (...) case of harmful existential feelings, it turns out that none seems fitting except one, attentional deployment. (shrink)

Since the release of ChatGPT, there has been a lot of debate about whether AI systems pose an existential risk to humanity. This paper develops a general framework for thinking about the existential risk of AI systems. We analyze a two-premise argument that AI systems pose a threat to humanity. Premise one: AI systems will become extremely powerful. Premise two: if AI systems become extremely powerful, they will destroy humanity. We use these two premises to construct a taxonomy (...) of ‘survival stories’, in which humanity survives into the far future. In each survival story, one of the two premises fails. Either scientific barriers prevent AI systems from becoming extremely powerful; or humanity bans research into AI systems, thereby preventing them from becoming extremely powerful; or extremely powerful AI systems do not destroy humanity, because their goals prevent them from doing so; or extremely powerful AI systems do not destroy humanity, because we can reliably detect and disable systems that have the goal of doing so. We argue that different survival stories face different challenges. We also argue that different survival stories motivate different responses to the threats from AI. Finally, we use our taxonomy to produce rough estimates of ‘P(doom)’, the probability that humanity will be destroyed by AI. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

The problem at the core of this ethical study is how Existentialist Ethics comprises the absolute character of obligation and how it is able to join the ethical postulate to the conrete situation without losing the absolute. Kariuki is chiefly interested in Sartre because he presents, in a most logical fashion, a model of Realistic Ethics that excludes all transcendence. At the same time, Kariuki shows the similarity between Sartre and A.I. Melden.

Background In a previous paper in Philos Ethics Humanit Med, the 1937 Swedish novel Sömnlös (Swedish for sleepless) by Vilhelm Moberg was used as background for a thought experiment, in which last century’s progresses concerning the safety of sleeping pills were projected into the future. This gave rise to a theoretical discussion about broad medico-philosophical questions such as (among other things) the concept of pharmaceuticalisation. Methods In this follow-up paper, the theme of insomnia in Sömnlös is complemented by a discussion (...) of the concept of nostalgia. The core of the paper is a theoretical discussion about the benefits and risks of nostalgia, bringing together some aspects of recent psychological research about the construct of nostalgia with the main story line of the novel. Results and Conclusion Nostalgia is portrayed as being, in some sense at least, ultimately beneficial for the protagonist of Sömnlös. This is congruent with recent psychological research. However, the story also shows that nostalgia may lead to problematic behaviours, at least when viewed from a virtue ethics perspective. Hence, nostalgia is both what leads the protagonist into ethically problematic behaviour and that which (paradoxically) ultimately saves him from his initial lack of courage, justice, temperance and practical wisdom. Moreover, the protagonist does not only “grow” ethically but also existentially. Hence, the novel opens up the possibility that insomnia and nostalgia might be viewed as bearers of important existential information (cf. sociologist of religion Peter L. Berger and his concept of “signals of transcendence”). (shrink)

Analysis of the psychological processes involved in generating the sense of supernatural agency, as well as social scientific research into the factors most directly associated with the prevalence of religious belief and practice, both support a common finding: the direct correlation between levels of existential anxiety and the prevalence and intensity of religiosity. All functional elements of religion involve efforts to invoke, activate, and deploy supernatural causal agency of one sort or another. But religiosity varies throughout the world. (...) This paper reviews psychological evidence that existential anxiety is the core factor activating the intra-psychic mechanisms that give rise to and constitute the nature of religiosity, and that variations in physical and socio-cultural pressures impinging on the individual give rise to variations in anxiety. This combination of intrinsic psychological mechanisms driven though existential anxiety by extrinsic physical, economic, and social pressures indicates that religiosity is best understood as a social–psychological process: socio-cultural factors activating anxiety which in turn drives the intra-psychic mechanisms generating the sense of supernatural agency expressed in belief and practice. By the same token, for analytical purposes, religions are most effectively viewed as social–psychological organisms: social organisms driven by intra-psychic mechanisms that constitute religious convictions and practices in the way that we find them—dedicated to and engaged with supernatural agency in its various forms. (shrink)