Through her reading of Euripides'Bacchae, Colridge's "Christabel," de Sade'sPhilosophy in the Bedroom, and Hitchcock'sPsycho author Alina M. Luna finds precedent for a destructive impulse lurking beneath the maternal gaze.

Gaze following is the ability to use others’ gaze to obtain information about the environment. As such, it may be highly adaptive in a variety of socio-ecological contexts, and thus be widespread across animal taxa. To date, gaze following has been mostly studied in primates, and partially in birds, but little is known on the gaze following abilities of other taxa and, especially, on the evolutionary pressures that led to their emergence. In this study, we used an experimental approach to (...) test gaze following skills in a still understudied taxon, ungulates. Across four species, we assessed the individual ability to spontaneously follow the gaze of both conspecifics and human experimenters in different conditions. In line with our predictions, species followed the model’s gaze both with human and conspecific models, but more likely with the latter. Except for guanacos, all species showed gaze following significantly more in the experimental conditions. Despite the relative low number of study subjects, our study provides the first experimental evidence of gaze following skills in non-domesticated ungulates, and contributes to understanding how gaze following skills are distributed in another taxon—an essential endeavor to identify the evolutionary pressures leading to the emergence of gaze following skills across taxa. (shrink)

The essay examines the Underground Man's ambivalent position in Dostoevskij's hierarchy of values in light of the Nietzschean concept of ressentiment To elucidate the problem of free will in Notes from Underground, I propose to supplement Nietzsche's theory with the concept of ressentiment as developed by Max Scheler, whose endorsement of Christian love as a means of overcoming ressentiment suggests an affinity with Dostoevskij's own deeply religious worldview. With the help of Schelerian phenomenology, I read the novel as an early (...) statement of the problem of Christian freedom in Dostoevskij's oeuvre. Like the "Pro and Contra" section of The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground turns our attention to the "costs" of the Christian ideal: in a world exposed to the ultimate horizon of desire through Christ, those lacking the serenity of faith may be doomed to the merciless torment of ressentiment. (shrink)

From experience, we know that some cognitive processes are effortless and automatic (or nearly automatic), while others are hard and deliberate. Dual process (DP) accounts of human cognition explain these differences by positing two qualitatively distinct types of cognitive processes within the human mind—types that cannot be reduced to each other. Because DP constructs are bound to show up in discourse on human cognition, decision-making, morality, and character formation, moral philosophers should take DP accounts seriously. Here, I provide an overview (...) of the current state of DP accounts—their basic tenets, major concepts, and the various models of the DP framework—and note some of its more salient criticisms from the psychological research community. Finally, I show that DP accounts’ commitment to a real qualitative distinction between rational and non-rational human behavior puts them at odds with a Thomistic/Aristotelian view of practical rationality. (shrink)

The paper considers three main models of temporal consciousness proposed in grappling with the “paradox of temporal awareness”. They are based on the notion that there is a basic element of perception in the form of some “mental frame” or “apparent present” which, while effective for describing some perceptual features, does not fully reflect our phenomenal experience. It is argued that a two-level model based on the separation of the “specious present” and “current present” is best correlated with higher-order theories (...) of consciousness and should act as a basis for further development of the temporal model of consciousness. (shrink)

New neural models for anorexia nervosa are emerging as a result of increased research on the neurobiology of AN, and these offer a rationale for the development of new treatment technologies such as neuromodulation. The emergence of such treatment technologies raises new ethical questions; however these have been little discussed for AN. In this article, I take an empirical approach and explore how young women who suffer from AN perceive treatment technologies in light of the concept of authenticity. Interview data (...) showed that participants in this study did not seem to unconditionally adhere to treatment modalities that only imply laborious self-work, such as therapy. The data also showed that they were willing to accept new treatment possibilities such as pharmacological or brain-directed treatment strategies, which they view as having potential instrumental value in coping with certain symptoms of the illness. However, such modalities can pose threats to patients’ authenticity, especially with regard to self-discovery. I argue that, in a context where there is an increased interest in brain-directed treatment strategies for AN, studies should continue to explore the ethical and psychological impact of such treatment technologies on individuals. (shrink)

This probing study of melancholy invites readers to view "depression" genealogically through the history of its interpretation. It plumbs interior depths where psychology, theology, philosophy, and literary creation intersect. Therapies proposed for the dark mood have included work, prayer, care of the self, and deepening awareness of its indispensable role in the development of consciousness of oneself and God. Reflecting on these historical responses and cures can prompt a personal exploration, making this a practical manual for self-knowing and self-transcending, a (...) philosophical "guide for the depressed.". (shrink)

Science fiction cinema proposal for Bioethic education Proposta do cinema de ficção científica para educar em Bioética Posthumanism state that technologies will eliminate aging, improve cognitive, physical and psychological skills and keep alive human minds by uploading them in machines as artificial intelligence. These beliefs, as constant features in science fiction films, could be useful to educate medical students in Bioethics. We propose some of these science fiction films related with technological changes of humans and the noxious consequences: Being turned (...) into a humanoid created by genetic engineering; a slave or a merchandize without rights; discrimination because of eugenesic genetic manipulation; and/or the creation of cyborgs of mass destruction. Also, the movies can show the reader issues of ethnic supremacy dilemmas, identity impersonate and ambition, impersonal intelligence and conscience and identity transpass after death. These films will help teachers to analyze with students the moral limits of science and technologies. Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo Alerm-González AJ, González-Pérez U. Propuesta del cine de ciencia ficción para educar en Bioética. Pers Bioet. 2019; 22: 14-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2019.23.1.2 Recibido: 10/11/2017 Aceptado: 20/10/2018. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between the economic well-being of countries and their openness to external markets. The scientific novelty consists in the comparison of two groups of countries with different characteristics and identifying specific patterns of the impact of selected macroeconomic factors on GDP. The article presents an econometric analysis and contains regression equations for each state. Interpretation of the coefficients of the derived models makes it possible to estimate changes in GDP with the (...) change of indicators. As a result, it was revealed that export is the most stable and strongly influencing the economy of all countries macroeconomic factor, and the strength of influence depends on the level of development of the country. The stability of GDP in developing countries is largely achieved through the regulation of internal factors, and in developed countries through exports regulation. (shrink)

Nietzsche is one of the most controversial and disputed philosophers, especially because of his association with Hitler and Nazism, but also through his upsetting philosophical decisions that deny the possibility of any morality centered on good and evil as absolute values in themselves. As for his association with Hitler, the sources prove that Nietzsche’s philosophy has nothing to do with the justification or support of the nationalist-socialist dictatorship. In addition, any connoisseur of his work can easily see that Hitler does (...) not fit at all with the description of the overman that Nietzsche conceptualizes and identifies with. As for morality, it seems to support a relativization of the values of good and evil until their dissolution, but a closer look can see that the morality of the masters accredited by Nietzsche is one of austerity, balance, respect, honor, dignity, of preferring loneliness to the amusement of the crowd. All these are values that even Christianity proposes. Lonely and incomprehensible, the master, Nietzsche lives a lifestyle similar to Christian ascetics. And just as the philosopher claims that the life of the masters should not be passed through the sieve of ordinary moral evaluations, who could judge in terms of “good” or “bad” the way the austere ones lived? (shrink)

The main objective of the presented research is identification of innovations in contemporary gender equality politics in the Baltic states. Some principles of a new institutionalism approach are applied for the examination of the development of gender equality machinery in the Baltic states since 1940. It is argued that since 1990/91, innovations in gender equality politics are related rather to the concept of gender equality than to the institutional machinery of gender equality policy.

Comment on Alfandre et al, "Between Usual and Crisis Phases of a Public Health Emergency: The Mediating Role of Contingency Measures".

This paper explores environmental protection policies and initiatives, such as conservation, through the lens of an orientalist epistemic injustice. This is a form of epistemic injustice that occurs when the orientalizing of space and access to sovereign systems of knowledge causes the assigning of an unjust deflated or elevated level of credibility to a knower. Under this framework of orientalist epistemic injustice, the author criticizes the credibility excess assigned to Western subjects that perform conservation efforts in third-world countries and the (...) related credibility deficit assigned to indigenous and local knowledge and conservation practices. (shrink)

Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated (...) neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits. The list of words comprised agentic and communal traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit. (shrink)

Résumé Le théâtre contemporain voit se détacher progressivement la représentation théâtrale du texte dramatique et se tourner vers les multiples incarnations d’un « théâtre du langage ». Jean-Luc Lagarce est un des meilleurs représentants de ce genre de théâtre en France à la fin du XXème siècle. Le dialogue théâtral – l’ensemble des répliques qu’échangent les personnages – tend à être de plus en plus brouillé, rompu, allant jusqu’à franchir les frontières qui séparent traditionnellement d’autres formes discursives, comme le monologue (...) ou la didascalie. Le dialogue présent au sein de la dramaturgie de Lagarce est habité par son négatif, par une sorte de démon qui provoque la perte de l’évidence du langage et fait naître une étrangeté forte dans les mots simples de tous les jours. Il questionne ainsi la capacité communicative du langage comme un outil humain inné et met en évidence l’échec des échanges langagiers entre les hommes mettant ainsi au jour l’inconnu du langage et l’inconnu de la société. Nous proposons ainsi que l’échec communicatif est un concept constructif de la dramaturgie française contemporaine et surtout de la création dramatique de Jean-Luc Lagarce qui englobe et fait naître l’intrigue, qui dirige l’action décentralisée vers l’acte de parole et qui crée véritablement les personnages dont un habitat naturel est la parole « en faillite », en question. (shrink)

The multiplicity of Islamic interpretations is reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the Romanian Muslim communities. The internal fragmentation and disunity of Muslim communities, intra-Islamic difficulties, ideological and sectarian rivalry, success of Salafism among certain groups, the absence of stronger and more visible Islamic alternative discourses and the lack of interest in finding adequate mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the new Muslims in society are some of the general problems of the Romanian Muslims. Local Islamic revival has an ethno-cultural (...) dimension, a religious and even a political one as external disputes are imported in the Romanian context and affects the way Muslims define and practice Islam. Some Rroma and indigenous Tatar-Turkish adopted the neo-traditionalism consolidated in the second half of the last century and promoted by the most active Sunni NGOs in Romania. Some converts emancipated from the ideological control by conservative and neoconservative Islamic currents and are in search of progressive or mystical interpretations; other new Muslims found safety in the Salafi’s certitudes and rigid rules. Case study findings presented in this article may suggest that the more it depends on formal rituals, external behavior and rigid canonical displays of religiosity, the more fragile the Muslim identity becomes. A vulnerable constructed Self conceives differences and alterity as an attack against personal identity, hence the increasing aggressive and intolerant, superior Salafi attitudes. The more it is built on universal values, inner experience, ethical convictions, the more open and capable of integrating alterity and fostering positive relations with people of different religions becomes Muslim identity. (shrink)

Andrei Oisteanu, The Image of the Jew in Romanian Culture Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001.

This book considers the aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical facets of a temporal paradox in the works of French novelist Claude Simon, and its broader implications for the study of narrative, and for cultural and post-modern theory.

The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the adaptive responses of biomechanical and electromyographic parameters to vertical unloading when walking during the 4-month isolation experiment SIRIUS-19 in the ground-based space station model. The study involved 6 healthy international crew members of the SIRIUS-19 project aged 34 ± 6.2 years. Body Weight Unloading conditions was created by the h/p/cosmos airwalk system. The locomotor test included walking with a sequential change of BWU modes: 5-min walking with 0% BWU, 5-min walking with (...) 65% BWU and 5-min walking with 85% BWU. Ground Reaction Force was recorded by the h/p/cosmos treadmill device. Muscle Lab Model 4000e device was used to record the electromyographic signals of the hip and shin muscles. The locomotor test was performed twice before GBI, monthly during GBI and 1 week after leaving isolation. The results obtained before GBI demonstrate that the changes of support and proprioceptive afferentation signals play significant role in reorganizing of the biomechanical structure of motor acts and the development of new movement patterns. The results of the study are consistent with the previously obtained results of other studies in this direction. Despite the fact that during the GBI the participants of the experiment performed regular physical training, a decrease in the performance indicators values was detected, especially pronounced after 100 days of GBI. This is probably due to limited space of a space station model, as well as the development of a special motor stereotype in it. Noteworthy are the results obtained after the 4th session of the experiment, indicating the effect of sensorimotor learning. We think that the data obtained in this study will be useful in research both in gravitational physiology and in clinical medicine. (shrink)

Focusing on the controversial birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, this article explores how debates about the safety of these drugs have materialized in risk evaluations and the management of technological risk. Drawing on in-depth interviews with stakeholders and content analysis of legal, medical, and regulatory documents, I highlight how professional contraceptive risk assessment is characterized by systemic uncertainty and doubt, resulting in increased responsibility for users themselves to manage the drugs’ potentially increased risks of venous thromboembolism. The analysis centers (...) on three key areas in the assessment process that denote disagreement: risk measurement in postmarket surveillance data, the distinctiveness of the drugs’ benefits when compared to other contraceptive technologies, and the weighing of the risks and benefits against each other. While professionals negotiate uncertainty both in epidemiological research and in clinical practice, users are constructed as agents who should manage risk individually. Such processes are underlined by a diffusion of responsibility in the systemic management of contraceptive risk. This article suggests, more broadly, that medical technologies can be conceptualized as artifacts that are instrumental in the dispersion of risks. (shrink)

This introductory paper analyzes the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant sects, which form the core of the Ecumenical movement. The development of the feminine problem in the ecumenical movement took shape in 1948, at the first Conference of the E.C.C., when Sarah Chakko presented a report on the place and role of women in church. Among the most important women’s achievements we must mention: The International Day of Prayer, the creation of the Department on Cooperation of Men and Women in Church (...) and Society (1954), and The Ecumenical Decade for Churches in Solidarity with Women (1988- 1998). Beyond the dogmatic and theological differences between the three sects and between the places that they assign to women, women’s contribution to the development of the Ecumenic Movement is increasing. (shrink)

A performance appraisal system forms an integral part of any developed management concept. The efficiency of such an appraisal system is fostered in institutions which prioritise quality and continuous improvement, and where innovationfriendly actions are joined by those that build confidence. An efficient appraisal system is characterised as follows: it is systemic in character, regular, universal, flexible, concrete, transparent and simple in application. When implementing a modern appraisal system, care should be taken to adhere to ethically sound principles such as (...) fairness, objectivity, goodness and truthfulness. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that female leaders lead slightly more effective than male leaders. However, women are still underrepresented in higher management. In this study, we seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of this paradox by proposing and testing an innovative model that integrates different research streams on gender and leadership. Specifically, we propose power motivation and transformational leadership as two central yet opposing dynamics that underlie the relation between gender and leadership role occupancy. We tested this model in (...) a sample of 256 employees. Results provided support for the proposed relations. These findings contribute to a more detailed and comprehensive understanding for central dynamics that link gender and leadership role occupancy. Moreover, they provide important insights for interventions that are targeted at reducing the gender gap in leadership. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

Much of modern technology critique inherits Heidegger’s ontico-ontological distinction. In this paper, following Stiegler’s linking of the ontic to the transgenerational, I argue that Heidegger leaves the materiality of technics as a potential site for difference in the wake. Put differently, Heidegger “declines the gift of the ontic,” instead constructing an order of an imagined Graeco-German inheritance—a culturally and linguistically specific “saving-power” against the ills of modern technology. Through Derrida’s inheritance of Heidegger’s work—marked by a different language and positionality—I reconsider (...) ontico-ontological difference as an opening to a co-constitutive productivity of world and thing, where the passing on of mnemonic inheritance features multiplicities of languages and cultural techniques that preempt Heidegger’s “Graeco-German monolingualism.” This calls for a central positioning of the politics of memory and inheritance within modern technology critique, thereby attending both to the material realities as well as the cultural differences of technics. (shrink)

_Nauman Faizi’s _God, Science, and the Self (2021)_ is a powerful and philosophically robust exploration of Muhammad Iqbal’s masterpiece _Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_. In this book, Faizi’s reading of Iqbal takes an analytic approach. He argues that Iqbal uses two distinct epistemic tendencies, which he terms “Representational” and “Pragmatic.” In tracing these tendencies, Faizi posits that Iqbal’s pragmatic tendency serves as a correction for his representational tendency, that the presence of both tendencies causes confusions in Iqbal’s work, and (...) that these are understandable and expected markers of Iqbal writing within epistemological conflict. Faizi’s analytical approach helps explicate Iqbal’s arguments but appears to be in tension with _Reconstruction’s_ non-analytical methodology. _. (shrink)

The present study sets out to discuss a literary work as a reflection of topophrenia, a space of anguish, which contains the data of both the abandoned space and of the new home, which are hypostasized in positive or negative emotions that the exiled writer experiences. Focusing on the exile and the space in Norman Manea’s works, this article proves the existence of an original view about this experience. Manea’s last novel, The Exiled Shadow (2021) is also included in our (...) analyses. (shrink)

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