Background: There is a shortage of reports on what potential recipients of implantable cardioverter–defibrillators need to be informed about and what role they can and want to play in the decision-making process when it comes to whether or not to implant an ICD.Aims: To explore how patients with heart failure and previous episodes of malignant arrhythmia experience and view their role in the decision to initiate ICD treatment.Patients and methods: A qualitative content analysis of semistructured interviews was used. The study (...) population consisted of 31 outpatients with moderate heart failure at the time of their first ICD implantation.Setting: The study was performed at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden.Results: None of the respondents had discussed the alternative option of receiving treatment with anti-arrhythmic drugs, the estimated risk of a fatal arrhythmia, or the expected time of survival from heart failure in itself. Even so, very little criticism was directed at the lack of information or the lack of participation in the decision-making process. The respondents felt that they had to rely on the doctors’ recommendation when it comes to such a complex and important decision. None of them regretted implantation of the ICD.Conclusions: The respondents were confronted by a matter of fact. They needed an ICD and were given an offer they could not refuse, simply because life was precious to them. Being able to give well-informed consent seemed to be a matter of less importance for them. (shrink)

From Arabidopsis and Antirrhinum to Arabia and Antioch: a review of cells to civilizations: the principles of change that shape life -/- Cells to Civilizations: The Principles of Change That Shape Life, Coen, E. 2012. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 312 pp. ISBN 978-0-691-14967-7.

An analysis of the way of further development of artificial intelligence similar to human was carried out, namely its intermediate stage, a state when he can communicate freely with people, can realistically imitate a some personality, freely change it, and thus become convenient for large-scale use in everyday life. An approximate view of the system was described, which it may become in the near future, given the recent technologies. The list of possible settings, which will be actual for similar (...) systems, is resulted. The possible areas of application of this artificial intelligence are listed. (shrink)

Aim: Patients with advanced cancer need information about end-of-life treatment options in order to make informed decisions. Clinicians vary in the frequency with which they initiate these discussions.Patients and methods: As part of a long-term longitudinal study, patients with an expected 2-year survival of less than 50% who had advanced gastrointestinal or lung cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were interviewed. Each patient’s medical record was reviewed at enrollment and at 3 months for evidence of the discussion of patient wishes (...) concerning ventilator support, artificial nutrition and hydration , resuscitation and hospice care. A Kaplan–Meier analysis was also performed and 2-year survival calculated.Results: 60 cancer and 32 ALS patients were enrolled. ALS patients were more likely than cancer patients to have evidence of discussion about their wishes for ventilator support , ANH , DNR and hospice care . At 6 months, 91% of ALS patients were alive compared with 62% of cancer patients; at 2 years, 63% of ALS patients were alive compared with 23% of cancer patients .Conclusions: Cancer patients were less likely than ALS patients to have had documented advanced care planning discussions despite worse survival. This may reflect perceptions that ALS has a more predictable course, that advanced cancer has a greater number of treatment options, or differing views about hope. Nevertheless, cancer patients may be less adequately prepared for end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

For those who choose to serve as close companions of terminally ill relatives or friends, "Parting" offers the collective wisdom of people from many cultures and faith traditions as a "travel guide" for meaningful companionship--helping someone toward a peaceful transition from this life.

The total ideology of the revolutionary-political themes of Ukrainian consciousness of the twentieth century, the poetization of the absurdly inverted hierarchy of values, was opposed by the new generation of artists with their philosophical and ethical orientation of their creativity. As I.Franko notes, they "... sought a completely modern European way to portray the peculiarity of the life of the Ukrainian people," revealing the unique collisionality of human existence, the diversity of psychological types, ideological orientations, and the human experience (...) of its existence on the background of this difficult time. However, Ukrainian writersphilosophers who talently laid the foundations of national culture, but are now returning to the generations of the Shattered Renaissance, filling black and bloody spots of troubled history of Ukraine. Among them are V. Pidmogylny, B. Antonovenko-Davidovich, G. Kosinka, D. Falkivsky, M.Ivchenko, T.Osmachka, E.Pluzhnik. This is a non-exhaustive list of the leading figures of the post-revolutionary period who were removed from the creative field, whose works are the golden fund of Ukrainian culture. (shrink)

In the context of changing paradigms of human thinking, secularization of social consciousness, scientific and technological and information revolution, social and environmental cataclysms, Christian preaching seeks to answer the "challenge of time", seeking and offering man such spiritual foundations of life that will help him to "find himself" in the changing in the modern world.

Objective: To survey members of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and of the Society for Medical Decision Making to elicit the similarities and differences in their reasoning about two clinical cases that involved ethical dilemmas.Cases: Case 1 was that of a patient refusing treatment that a surgeon thought would be beneficial. Case 2 dealt with end-of-life care. The argument was whether intensive treatment should be continued of an unconscious patient with multiorgan failure.Method: Four questions, with structured multiple (...) alternatives, were asked about each case: identified core problems, needed additional information, appropriate next steps and who the decision maker should be.Observations and results: Substantial similarities were noticed between the two groups in identifying the core problems, the information needed and the appropriate next steps. SMDM members gave more weight to outcomes and trade-offs and ASBH members had patient autonomy trump other considerations more strongly. In case 1, more than 60% of ASBH respondents identified the patient alone as the decision maker, whereas members of SMDM were almost evenly divided between having the patient as the solo decision maker or preferring a group of some sort as the decision maker, a significant difference . In case 2, both groups agreed that the question of discontinuing treatment should be discussed with the family and that the family alone should not be the decision maker.Conclusion: Despite distinctively different methods of case analysis and little communication between the two professional communities, many similarities were observed in the actual decisions they reached on the two clinical dilemmas. (shrink)

Originally published in 1965. This volume presents a systematic study of Rumi’s rebirth into a total being. By studying the elements of Persian culture, as well as the unique writings of Rumi, the author reveals the characteristics of maturity, the qualities of final integration in identity, health, and happiness that underlie Rumi’s life and work.

This chapter considers whether the neutral level for extending life is a constant. It shows there are plausible grounds for thinking it may not be. However, it adopts the assumptions that it is constant as a default view. This leads to the standardized total principle for lives, which says that the value of a life is the total of temporal wellbeing contained in the life. This amounts to intrapersonal utilitarianism. The chapter considers the implication of this conclusion (...) for the badness of death. (shrink)

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

AbstractIntegrity is considered an important corporate value. Yet recent global events have highlighted the challenges firms face at living up to their stated values, especially when extended supply chain partners are involved. The concept of Supply Chain Integrity (SCI) can help firms shift focus beyond internal corporate integrity, toward supply chain integrity. Researchers and managers will benefit from an understanding of the SCI concept toward implementing SCI to better align supply chain partners with stated corporate values. This research fully develops (...) and empirically grounds the firm-level, inter-firm-oriented SCI concept. The thematic analysis of six firms’ archival and website content elaborated empirical descriptions of SCI themes and enabled the development of a process model for SCI, presenting a novel view of the underlying process by which firms can assess, develop, and maintain SCI across their supply chains. We propose the SCI model as an evolutionary process to improve a firm’s supply chain sustainability, rather than a dichotomous end state where firms either “have” integrity or they don’t. The SCI model could be used as a tool to help leaders create necessary change to better align values and supporting statements with culture, while influencing and affecting stakeholders across the supply chain. This is particularly important in today’s world, where business leaders must consider all stakeholders and address important stakeholder-driven issues such as supply chain sustainability, resilience, and security, which are now at the forefront in the ever-changing environment. (shrink)

The paper explores the relation between reason and action as it emerges from the texts of Āyurveda. Life or Ayus (commonly understood as life-span) is primary subject matter of Ayurveda. Life is a locus of experience, action and disposition. Experiences and actions are differentially determined by dispositions that characterize the organism; otherwise all living organisms will be identical. Ayus of each living being is uniquely individual and remains constant between birth and death. In this journey, upkeep of (...) ayus is the purpose of Āyurveda or science of life. Ayurveda is a science of experienced matter as well as of experienced body. The living body is critically dependent on the influx of matter for its upkeep. Āyurveda offers a conceptual system to reason about balance and imbalances of the system and the causal role of the material flux through the system. This sensate matter is causally open and makes room for definite causal role for the individual and the effective insertion of the felt-purpose of action. Some of the strengths of Ayurveda are brought forth in the paper such as (a) reasoning out the compatibility between the bodily processes and the selection of the natural products for diet and drug, (b) role for heuristics in medical diagnosis, which takes into cognizance the particularity of each living body and the teleology evident in the very act of diagnostic reasoning. The paper shows that Āyurvedic theory is built on experiential datum whereas scientific medical theory is built on experience-independent datum. Āyurveda explores causal efficacy of ‘secondary qualities’ whereas scientific medicine explores causal efficacy of ‘primary qualities’. The actionable experiential reasoning is at the foundations of Āyurveda whereas modern medical science is ab initio saddled with difficult ‘hiatus theoreticus’ between theory and practice. For Ayurveda it is experience of qualities that discloses behavior of matter. The types of qualities that appear in experience have a special significance for theorizing about the actions of matter with the help of qualities. The paper explores the relation between experience of qualities and the method of science. It shows how efficacy of medical practice is based on the foundational stance of experiential realism in theory. To bring the point home, the paper borrows Aristotalian concepts to show how the relation between phantasm and phronesis is honored in the very theory of Āyurveda. (shrink)

The question of how to affirm one's life in view of suffering and loss is central to Nietzsche's philosophy. He shows, I claim, that one can affirm – take joy or find beauty in – one's life as a whole, conceived as necessary in all its elements, while also despising parts of it. Yet he mostly pictures such life-affirmation as achievable only via an atheistic theodicy that relies on a key ambition of the very system of morality (...) that he famously attacks: namely to explain or justify suffering in terms of a higher end to which it is essential. I argue that affirmation of one's life is more powerful without the crutch of any theodicy, and point to Job as a paragon of one who can affirm his life without seeking an answer to the question of the meaning or value of suffering – indeed who can dispense altogether with that question. (shrink)

To live the risen life with God is, presumably, to be what we are meant to be. What can we conclude about our duties to the dying from the medieval belief that we join the hosts of heaven as “animated earth”?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Without Buddha I Could not Be a ChristianPeter A. HuffWithout Buddha I Could not Be a Christian. By Paul F. Knitter. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009. xvii + 240 pp.Paul Knitter’s contributions to interfaith dialogue and Christian theologies of religions are well known and widely appreciated. Even critics of Christian theories of pluralism, most prominently Pope Benedict XVI, have acknowledged the significance of Knitter’s strategic integration of perspectives from liberation (...) theology into what is sometimes an overly abstract field of inquiry. Colleagues active in Buddhist-Christian studies hold Knitter in especially high esteem as a writer, teacher, translator, [End Page 211] editor, self-described interreligious theologian, and unapologetic person of faith. This book, his first major publication since accepting the Paul Tillich chair at Union Theological Seminary, offers a uniquely first-person reflection on the spiritual fruits of a career profoundly and provocatively shaped by two religious traditions.Written for a popular audience, the book, the author says, has been in the works “for the past forty years” (p. xv). The reader gains valuable insight into the professional and private life of a remarkable “dialogical theologian” (p. xv), whose experience includes a rather conventional upbringing in working-class Midwestern Catholicism, some twenty years of service as a seminarian and missionary priest with the Society of the Divine Word, graduate education in Europe with the likes of Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) and Karl Rahner (1904–1984) during the revolutionary years of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and nearly four decades of pioneering work as a productive scholar-activist in mainstream academic theology. At times Knitter even quotes from his unpublished journals in an effort to document fully his unscripted intellectual and spiritual development.Though highly personal, the book is not primarily an autobiography or conversion narrative. Instead, it is an introspective analysis of the internal dialogue that virtually all participants in interreligious affairs recognize as the heart of the global ecumenical encounter. Knitter’s book serves as something of an apologia for what is known today as dual religious belonging or hyphenated religious identity. The author concludes his text with this intriguing but not surprising spiritual self-portrait: both lifelong baptized Christian and “card-carrying Buddhist” (p. 216). The challenge of accounting for this “both /and” orientation grants the book its distinctive character and its reason for being.Knitter borrows his method from the twentieth-century minor classic The Way of All the Earth: Experiments in Truth and Religion (1978). In that work, Notre Dame theology professor and Holy Cross priest James Dunne suggested that the path to holiness in the contemporary West leads inevitably through intimate engagement with the ancient wisdom traditions of the East. Even a casual review of the spiritual history of the last century or so will confirm how earnest seekers in modernity’s secular city have renewed, rediscovered, or critically redefined their native faith commitment through life-changing contact with the ideas and values of Asian religious traditions. It is a story familiar to anyone acquainted with the extraordinary religious pilgrimages of interfaith saints such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), Thomas Merton (1915–1968), and Bede Griffiths (1906–1993).Dunne dubbed this experience the “spiritual adventure of our time” (p. 2); Knitter passionately agrees. He applies Dunne’s dialectical method and his special terminology to his own spiritual odyssey, “passing over” from Christian questions and problems to possible answers and solutions in the Buddhist tradition and then “passing back” to Christian belief and practice with enhanced purpose and a fresh sense of integrity.The starting point for Knitter’s project is cognitive, moral, even emotional dissatisfaction with some of the fundamental structures of the historic Christian worldview: God as transcendent creator and lord of history, Jesus Christ as incarnate Logos and [End Page 212] universal savior, and salvation as the survival of human personality after death and the eschatological redemption of all finite reality. In essence, Knitter claims, traditional theism and the core myth of Christianity as expressed in scripture, creed, and liturgy appear painfully ineffective and to a large extent incoherent in the context of modern life and the international interface of world religions. What especially drives the... (shrink)

Aesthetics originated in ancient India as a descriptive account of the drama which was meant for both entertainment and education of the mass. If the drama was a mass medium, aesthetics — its account — represented the mass culture. Philosophical thinking, rigorous ethical practices and the dramatic art had a common aim — experience of the Reality as a whole. The difference was that while the first two were accessible to only a few elite or intellectuals, the third one was (...) meant for all. The mass was experiencing the representation of Reality in the drama by a dehghtful emotional response. The sensibihty necessary for such response was technically called "like-heartedness" which was also a necessary qualification for a healthy social life. (shrink)

Among the characteristic features of Russian philosophy, there is its openness and connections with other realms of public consciousness. In the Middle Ages Orthodox religion was trying to take over the main functions of Russian philosophy. Philosophy was not just under the aegis of religion, as it was in Western Europe and Byzantium, but in its depths. Active philosophical life manifested itself under non-philosophical covers. Russian literature also is involved in philosophy. A plenty of a philosophical writers could doubtlessly (...) be called great. They are: Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, etc. The things that each of them has brought into philosophy are very different in size and direction. As a result of the openness of Russian philosophy appears a unique ideological element which borders on natural science. This element was philosophical on its nature, but it had a strong and sound ties with natural science. No less important for Russian philosophy its connection with historical science. Philosophical ideas and categories are involved in the study of historical events and processes. Historical science, enriched with philosophy, does not remain extraneous to it. Philosophical historians also influenced different sections of philosophy: philosophy of history, social and political philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophical anthropology… Russian philosophy penetrated into other spheres – music, painting, etc., where it was represented by quite significant figures, in particular – Alexander Scriabin, Nikolay Roerich. The philosophical views of Scriabin and Roerich were not limited to the framework of their theoretical, philosophical constructions. Artistic intuition embodied these constructions in the creation of art. Nowadays contacts of Russian philosophy in its various manifestations with other areas of intelligence also do not lose their attractiveness. (shrink)

The problem of human religious consciousness can be attributed to the category of "eternal" philosophical problems, which have never been removed and cannot be removed from the agenda of humanity. The world outlook of a person is updated throughout history as the person, conditions and content of his life, his goals, ideals and perspectives are constantly changing. In each era, this problem retains its fundamental importance, and, being part of all significant philosophical systems, means not a simple continuation of (...) a particular tradition, but the identification of the changing aspects and historical perspectives of human existence. The question of what consciousness, which is its nature and essence, is of great ideological, ideological and practical importance, since it touches upon the foundations of human existence, content and purpose of life. (shrink)

On the life and works of Averroës, 1126-1198, Islamic religious philosopher.

Answers of Svāmī Indraveśa, 1937-2006, great social worker, Arya Samaj leader and member of parliament from Rohtak, India, questions by his disciple Āryaveśa, chiefly spiritual and philosophical.

With this study of the phenomenological idealism of Husserl, in all of its dimensions and phases, Giorgio Baratta places himself within the ranks of a new type of student of Husserlian phenomenology. Representatives of this type are R. Boehm, I. Kern, and L. Kelkel among others. They do not feel the need to apologize for Husserl’s conceptual awkwardness, an awkwardness that reflects growth; nor are they overafflicted by Husserl’s sin of idealism, nor embarrassed by his recourse to the bewildering realm (...) of the transcendental. They do not need to profit from claims of close discipleship, or from iconoclastic feats; thus they are able to show us a Husserl who lived in constant struggle with the conceptual issues of his time, and who created perhaps the broadest matrix for the reconciliation of these issues. In Baratta’s work we are told of Husserl’s nationalistic speeches to the troops during World War I; of his search for the identity of Germany during the Weimar years; of his idealistic desires to influence, if only remotely and indirectly, education and politics ; of his preoccupation with the issue of the decline of the West widely discussed after the publication of Spengler’s popular work; of his personal eclipse, with many of his disciples turning away, as a consequence of his idealistic confession; and finally of the ostracism in which he lived during the Nazi years. Against this background, certainly not larger than life, we are given clear view of the major thrusts of Husserl’s effort to preserve human subjectivity and its values by placing it under the influence of classical German idealism. The Scylla and Charybdis of Husserl’s position were: 1) the propensity of his scientific objectivism to become either Platonism or psychologism; 2) the propensity of his philosophical foundation of subjectivity to turn into subjective idealism. The response to these dangers within Husserl’s own system was, on the one hand, an objective idealism in the tradition of Plato and Leibniz and, on the other hand, an honest effort to rescue creative intuition from the realm of the mundane. This surprisingly eclectic response exposed Husserl to attacks from all sides, from positivistic psychologism, from neo-Kantian operationalism and from the more extreme forms of idealism and materialism. Also, because of the vulnerability of this response, the core of Husserl’s eclecticism broke easily down into the Platonic descriptivism of the advocates of Ideenschau and the mundane ontology of the early Heidegger. In two concluding essays, which are as effortlessly insightful as the initial two, transcendental phenomenology is presented by Baratta in the context of the historical justification that Husserl gave it in his mature years. As this historical justification receives further support from an overlapping philosophy of history, phenomenology takes on some bright ideological colors. Husserl’s pages in the Crisis open up a wide panorama of philosophical responsibility: science urgently needs the influence of human goals, and humanity itself cannot remain entrapped in worldly goals without gradually reducing the life of the common man to a state of complete reification. Baratta’s work owes much to Boehm, and Kern and Kelkel, nevertheless it is a work of maturity, surely in possession of the thematic undercurrents of Husserl’s thought which themselves underlie, because of their eclecticism, all the major themes of the main schools of thought today. This work should be read as a contribution to the study of phenomenology and as a further step in our understanding of the predicament of contemporary thought.—A. M. (shrink)

Contributed articles chiefly on philosophy; memorial volume in honor of Mafizuddin Ahmed, b. 1927, professor of philosophy and writer from Rājshāhi District, Bangladesh; includes some articles on his life and work.

This study is based on the 1983 Rural Health Survey of Ethiopia. Patterns and levels of child morbidity by age, sex, geographic region, and sanitary facilities are examined. Morbidity levels peak in the second year of life. Diarrhoeal diseases are of major importance, especially among infants and toddlers. Parasitic diseases, and respiratory diseases other than pneumonia, become increasingly important with age.There are no significant sex differentials in morbidity except for higher rates of diarrhoeal diseases among female children. Geographic differentials (...) are quite marked with particularly high morbidity levels from all disease types in the western mountainous regions of Ethiopia. Access to high quality drinking water, a latrine, and garbage disposal, are strongly related to reduced overall morbidity levels, though not necessarily to reduced diarrhoeal disease levels. (shrink)

This article considers the issues of adaptation and organization of the educational process, barrier-free environment and readiness for professional activity of students with disabilities in inclusive education in conditions of inclusive education in a medical university. The relevance of this work is determined by one of the priority areas of state policy in the field of higher education – access to higher education for people with disabilities in inclusive education. Inclusive education at the university is designed to ensure not only (...) the realization of the right of students with disabilities in inclusive education to higher education, but also to solve the problems of socialization and professional demand for such people. In order to improve the process of introducing inclusive education at the Ryazan State Medical University named after Academician I.P. Pavlov, a study was conducted, the main problems and ways of solving them were identified, related to the organization of the educational process, the conditions of the barrier-free environment and the readiness for professional activity of students with disabilities in inclusive education. An increase in the proportion of university teachers who have undergone advanced training in inclusive education also contributes to solving problems. Adaptation of educational programs and educational and methodological support for persons with disabilities includes psychological, pedagogical and tutor support etc. The organization of the educational process using distance education technologies is one of the priority conditions for teaching students with disabilities and/or HIA. The use of this technology makes it possible to significant-ly expand and modify some educational standards for students with disabilities in inclusive education, namely, to create an individual way for each student with disabilities in inclusive education in a medical university. It is proposed to use training techniques such as: online consultation of teachers; VR technologies; availability of training materials 24/7; online webinars that facilitate the inclusion of such students in the educational and research activities of the university. The professionally organized educational space and educational process of the university provide not only a high level of mastery of professional competencies, but also contribute to the formation of personal qualities of students with disabilities in inclusive education, necessary for their successful socialization, life and activity in society. (shrink)

The House of Lords in F v West Berkshire Health Authority [1989] considered the lawfulness of providing care and treatment for a mentally incapacitated adult. They did not, however, directly consider the use of restraint to enable the provision of care in the face of resistance from the patient. The law has since had good cause to give consideration to this important issue. This paper establishes the present law in the context of using restraint to deliver care. Although the legal (...) principles established have derived from what might be considered to be “hard cases”, life-and-death cases, they apply to all aspects of routine medical, dental and nursing care. Further, the paper considers the recent government proposals and the effect those proposals may have on the routine care of such patients. (shrink)

In Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan v. Engler ), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that § 400.109 of the Social Welfare Act of Michigan ) impermissibly conflicts with the Medicaid Act ) as modified by the 1994 Hyde Amendment ), insofar as the § 400.109 only provides state funding for abortions necessary to save the life of a mother, and not for abortions resulting from rape or incest. The court held that the Hyde (...) Amendment defines medically necessary abortions that must be funded by states participating in the federal Medicaid program, and that the amendment is not merely a federal appropriations bill. (shrink)

The possibility now exists of capturing a cradle-to-grave record of everything a person says or does. No longer must a personal history be a partial picture. Technology has made it possible to record, process, store, and retrieve all the text, sounds, and images that are required to paint a complete picture of an individual’s life. The efforts of future historians will be directed more to forgetting than to remembering. By default, society will forget nothing. For almost all of human (...) history, remembering has meant the judicious selection and organization of observations about events and people. There used to be an information frontier beyond which the past was a tabula rasa . That information frontier has gone the way of the dodo. The social memory of events in an individual’s life is not only detailed but permanent. Although physical storage is fallible and changes in technology may make some devices effectively unreadable, these limitations are more than made up for by the negligible cost of duplication and distribution in a network. The record of one’s triumphs and tragedies will haunt one forever. Gone is personal privacy since facts buried in the past can be uncovered at any moment. Gone is personal memory since it is easier to rely on the external social memory of cyberspace. In what follows, we explain these observations and trace their consequences. (shrink)

A guide to defining and then creating a flourishing life, based on the popular class at Yale What makes a good life? The question is inherent to the human condition, asked by people across generations, professions, and social classes, and addressed by all schools of philosophy and religions. This search for meaning, as Yale professors Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz argue, is at the crux of a crisis that is facing Western culture, a crisis that, they (...) propose, can be ameliorated by searching, in one's own life, for the underlying truth. In A Life Worth Living, named after its authors' highly sought-after undergraduate course, Volf, Croasmun, and McAnnally-Linz chart out this question, providing readers with jumping-off points, road maps, and habits of reflection for figuring out where their lives hold meaning and where things need to change. Drawing from the major world religions and from impressively truthful and courageous secular figures, A Life Worth Living is a guide to life's most pressing question, the one asked of all of us: How are we to live? (shrink)

One of the traditional metaphysical assumptions that Heidegger's Being and Time challenges is that the disembodied 'theoretical' standpoint has priority over the embodied 'practical' standpoint. Heidegger argues that any act of theoretical reflection is derivative of pre-reflective social practices that we are "always already" familiar with. Some contemporary critics insist they are continuing this project by exploring aspects of our concrete practices that Heidegger's analysis allegedly overlooks, particularly by focusing on the role that the body plays in everyday life. (...) In this dissertation, I address these criticisms and suggest that they contribute to Heidegger's project only on the ontic level and in no way diminish the original contribution of his philosophy. Heidegger is not overly concerned with regional investigations into the various ways that human beings meaningfully encounter things in the world. Heidegger is concerned with the being of beings , with fundamental ontology, which asks the question: "How come meaning?" Or, put in another way, "What are the conditions for the possibility of any meaning, any intelligibility whatsoever?" ;For Heidegger, human existence as Dasein is, ultimately, neither a body-subject with emotions, perceptions, instincts, or social habits nor a self-enclosed mind. Rather, Dasein is more like a 'mass' term, referring to a shared, unfolding background of cultural relations: norms, customs, institutions, historical events, and equipment. This public background is already "there," prior to the appearance of the body, and it is structured temporally, constituting a horizon, "clearing" , or "space of free play" in terms of which things can show up as meaning something to me. I argue that it is only by means of this prior clearing of intelligibility that I can make sense of my embodied practices and that bodies can initially emerge-into-presence as the kind of things that they are. (shrink)

ernard Baars’ metaphor of the theatre of consciousness has the ability to powerfully evoke and illustrate in a single image many of the functions of the mind and the brain, both conscious and unconscious. The simplicity and sheer appeal of the image of the stage, with conscious events acted out upon it by players moving under the spotlight of attention, makes it easy to visualize, to remember, and to think about. Thus, it is richly evocative, inviting further speculation as to (...) how the elements in front, behind, and on the stage, interact to yield the conscious experiences of daily life. I suspect that the ease and power of this metaphor will go a long way toward making the study of consciousness in psychology not only academically legitimate -- a battle we have just about won -- but something other than mush in the minds of most academic psychologists. I believe that this metaphor will play the role for the cognitive psychology of consciousness that the Atkinson-Shiffrin stage model of memory played for the cognitive psychology of memory some decades back . Like that model, it summarizes most current findings and organizes them in a fashion easily understood by a wide readership. My guess is that it will stimulate a broad range of research and scholarship during the coming years. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, work relations have changed dramatically. New phenomena like “gig-economy” or “crowd work” not only constitute precarious working conditions but also contradict with our social esteem of work resulting from the social theories of the classical economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The central focus of classical economists on building an educated and disciplined workforce provided not only the base for the upcoming industrial society but also resulted in a work-based society where “being employed” became (...) the precondition for social security and social participation. It is the aim of this contribution to show how our positive attitudes towards work, established by the political economic theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are jeopardized by the social changes in post-industrialized societies, due to the effects of globalized economies, digitalization and changed industrial relations. This has also far-reaching consequences for managerial theories based on conceptions like meaningful work or discussions about social responsibilities vis-à-vis employees as primary stakeholder groups. (shrink)

Introduction -- Making sense of life -- communication problems -- Making sense of politics -- Stop making sense -- Towards a critical existentialism.