This study explored drug users’ attitudes toward and understanding of randomized controlled trials testing addiction therapies. A video portraying a fictional consent conference for a randomized controlled trial with placebo arm was shown to poor male and female drug users of diverse ethnic status and sexual orientation. The video stimulated focus group discussion in which participants’ comments often reflected “experimental realism”—a realistic view of the trial—and adequate understanding of the uncertain efficacy of the treatment being tested, as well as the (...) concepts of randomization and placebo control. However, participants’ comprehension of the nature of placebos was compromised by the widespread view that placebos are a way of testing a subject’s willpower and personal control over his or her addiction. Comments also showed a mistrust of the video investigator’s integrity and competence and signs of therapeutic misconception and misestimation. The study’s findings underscore the importance of tailoring informed consent encounters to the personal and sociohistorical context of participants’ lived experiences. (shrink)

As society progresses with newer technology choices and greater materialistic welfare, we also witness more incidences of aggression and violence among the youth and adolescents. This is partly due to the mental stress that they undergo. There has been a renewed interest to understand the causes of aggression and violence. More importantly, there is an interest to identify methods to manage these. This article is an attempt to showcase the usefulness of yoga in addressing this aspect. The present study was (...) conducted to find out the effect of 4 weeks’ yoga practice on 158 (76 girls and 82 boys) normal healthy adolescents’ attitude towards violence (ATV) in comparison to practice of physical exercises (PE). The study showed that both yoga and PE groups demonstrated significant reduction in their positive ATV strategies and increased positive use of non-violent strategies. Boys in the yoga group showed significant improvement, whereas the control group showed non-significant improvement. Girls in the yoga also displayed significant progress over the control group. Thus, the study points to the usefulness of introducing yoga to the adolescents in their formative years through a structured curriculum. This is likely to provide numerous benefits both for the individual and the society at large. (shrink)

Fifty two scholars from the east and west have contributed essays to this volume presented to T. M. P. Mahadevan, head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Madras on his fiftieth birthday. Although the range of papers is broad, collectively they present an overview of the diverse currents in traditional and contemporary Indian philosophy. A bibliography of Mahadevan's writings is also included.—R. J. B.

This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion.

Stephen Law’s evil-god challenge is the argument that since an evil god is just as likely as the God of theism, there is no reason to believe that theism is true over believing there is a god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent. There have been several attempts to answer the challenge, but recently John Collins has defended the evil-god challenge and also extended the argument past Law’s original formulation. In this article, I defend the classical theism of Thomas Aquinas (...) against the evil-god challenge. In particular, I explain how Aquinas’s theodicy involving God’s goodness and Aquinas’s privation view of evil avoid the challenge. (shrink)

Searle has recently used two adaptations of his Chinese room argument in an attack on connectionism. I show that these new forms of the argument are fallacious. First I give an exposition of and rebuttal to the original Chinese room argument, and then a brief introduction to the essentials of connectionism.

The COVID-19 pandemic shocked the global economy, with numerous companies suffering losses and shutting down. However, some companies proved to be resilient, being able to sustain their economic performance despite the pandemic. The study aims to explain the sustainable economic performance of companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationships between empowering leadership, innovative work behavior, organizational readiness to change, and sustainable economic performance were assessed. The data were collected via an online questionnaire from January 2021 to March 2021, during the (...) height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. The respondents were Russian companies’ employees holding management positions, competent to objectively assess organizational circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 337 was used in the analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with maximum likelihood estimation was conducted using SPSS AMOS. The structural model was tested with standardized parameter estimates, standard errors, and p-values calculated. The findings of the study suggest that innovative work behavior and organizational readiness to learn have a direct influence on sustainable economic performance. The findings also suggest that empowering leadership impacts innovative work behavior but not sustainable economic performance. The mediation analysis indicates that innovative work behavior is a mediator between empowering leadership and sustainable economic performance, whereas organizational readiness to learn is not a moderator. The study adds to the leadership and sustainability body of knowledge and contributes to the research on the COVID-19 pandemic in the organizational context. (shrink)

This volume contains the major papers presented at the Second International Conference of the International Society For Metaphysics held at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. The Society was conceived at the 14th International Congress of Philosophy meeting in Vienna in 1968, sponsored by leading members of the Metaphysical Society Of America, and was initiated at the International Congress of Philosophy held at Varna, Bulgaria in 1973. This is the first volume of their proceedings to be published. Subsequent volumes are (...) in preparation presenting the meetings in New York, also in 1976, and in Jerusalem in 1977. The theme of the Calcutta meeting in India was "Man And Nature," reflecting the renewed import of discussions of nature evident in the twentieth century, including the limits and possibilities it may offer for human personality. The depth and variety of the metaphysical analysis is too complex for serious comment in this brief space. The pluralism, geographical diversity and range of the conference is most evident from the contents of this volume: Part I, Science And Nature, includes papers by E. Agazzi, A. Mercier, and E. E. Harris. Part II, Progress and Nature, includes papers by M. Chatterjee, J. E. Smith, J. Kuszynski, A. N. Woznicki, and S. Chakravarti. Part III, Person And Nature, includes papers by K. Bhattacharya, S. C. Thakur, C. Chung-yuan, and T. A. Fay. Part IV, Transcendence And Nature, includes papers by M. Abe, K. K. Banerjee, T. M. P. Mahadevan, W. N. Clarke, E. Deutsch, and B. Bhattacharya. The essays offer considerations of animism, aesthetics, buddhism, causality, existentialism, Marxism, pragmatism, Tao, and conclude with a tribute to R. Tagore. It is most appropriate that in this journal congratulations be offered to the International Society For Metaphysics for the success of its early endeavors, and for this initial contribution to international discussion as evidence of the vitality of metaphysical reflection.--Harold A. Durfee, American University. (shrink)

This paper examines the standard conceptualizations of the notion of hallucination in light of various non-ordinary phenomenological patterns associated with altered states of consciousness induced by psychoactive agents. It is argued that in general, the conceptualizations encountered in the literature do not do justice to the richness and complexity that the psychological phenomenology actually exhibits. A close inspection of this phenomenology reveals some pertinent distinctions which are usually not made in the scientific literature. On the one hand, the discussion is (...) based on first-hand experiences and, on the other hand, it is grounded in empirical and theoretical cognitive investigations of the phenomenology of human consciousness. Theoretically, the discussion is grounded in an approach highlighting the centrality of experience, meaning and action in cognition. (shrink)

La richesse et surtout la variété des images que le mystère de la Trinité de Dieu a suscitées dans l’art au cours des siècles jusqu’au nôtre, notamment en Occident, a de quoi dérouter. L’auteur le sait d’expérience, travaillant depuis plusieurs décennies sur ce sujet, ce qui lui a donnée l’idée de fournir aux chercheurs une manière de boussole leur permettant d’abord de classer ces images en fonction des sept étapes de leur genèse et de leurs principales sources d’inspiration, puis d’évaluer (...) leur pertinence intellectuelle à la lumière de sept critères tirés de la réflexion théologique traditionnelle sur le sujet et de sa conceptualité spécifique, chacun d’entre eux étant illustré, enfin, par trois images emblématiques. (shrink)

The destruction of the Egyptian army in the Book of Exodus is the primary story of salvation for Israel; God is the chief combatant in this story. "Yahweh is a warrior!" So goes the victory hymn in Exodus 15:3 after the annihilation of the enemy by Yahweh, marking the importance held by this show of divine power. This unleashing of divine power and its militaristic imagery has long caught the attention of scholars as starkly nationalistic. Thomas B. Dozeman furthers this (...) study by addressing the theological problem of divine power in the Exodus story and, by extension, the Judeo-Christian attempt to deify nationalism by calling its wars holy. He interprets Exodus as liturgy, the Day of Yahweh, celebrating God's defeat of Pharaoh and the ultimate ascendancy of Israelite authority. This liturgy, though, did not remain static, but changed as the national experience of exile changed the practice of Israelite worship. An isolated event evolved into an extended account of salvation history, in which the life of faith becomes a wilderness march to the promised land. Dozeman traces how revisionary embellishments in the plot structure and characters of the Exodus story reflected the new understanding of divine power. By combining literary and historical interpretation this study offers the first serious inquiry into the idea of divine power, and makes a major contribution to resurgent research on the Pentateuch as a whole. No scholar concerned with biblical historiography and its justification of holy wars can afford to ignore this book. (shrink)

I Norge er ikke surrogati tillatt, og myndighetene fraråder norske statsborgere å benytte seg av surrogati i utlandet. I denne artikkelen fokuserer vi på kommersiell gestational surrogati og stiller spørsmålet: Bør man tillate at norske statsborgere benytter seg av surrogati i India? De etiske problemstillingene rundt surrogati er mange og sammensatte og blir spesielt utfordrende når tjenesten tilbys i et land med store kulturelle og økonomiske forskjeller både internt og i forhold til Norge. Vi baserer analysen og drøftingen av dette (...) etisk utfordrende spørsmålet på Beauchamps og Childress sin veletablerte metodiske tilnærming innen biomedisinsk etikk. Vi anvender de fire allmennmoralske prinsipper: respekt for autonomi, velgjørenhet, ikke-skade og rettferdighet på sakskomplekset for å synliggjøre spenningene involvert i dette etiske dilemmaet. Med full bevissthet om at det ikke finnes noen lettvinte og omkostningsfrie løsninger på dilemmaer generelt og dette spesielt, konkluderer vi med at interessene til de berørte parter, og spesielt surrogatmødrenes, kan bli bedre ivaretatt om surrogati tillates under omfattende reguleringer. Dersom man velger å gjøre praksisen illegal, vil man også miste mulighetene til å påvirke prosessen og sikre rettighetene til de involverte partene.Nøkkelord: surrogati, Norge–India, utnyttelse, autonomi, regulering av prosessenEnglish summary: Should Norwegian citizens be permitted to use surrogacy in India?Surrogacy is not permitted in Norway, and the government strongly advises against Norwegian citizens travelling abroad to have children through the use of the surrogacy industry. In this article, we focus on commercial gestational surrogacy and debate the question: Should Norwegian citizens be permitted to use surrogacy in India? The ethical concerns regarding surrogacy are complex and are especially challenging when the service is offered in a country with big cultural and economic differences both internal and in comparison to Norway. We base our analysis of this ethical, challenging question on Beauchamp’s and Childress’s well-established approach within biomedical ethics. We apply the four principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice to shed light on the conflicts of interests in this ethical dilemma. With full awareness that there are no simple and correct solutions to dilemmas in general and on this issue, especially, our conclusion is that the interests of the involved parties, and especially those of the surrogate mothers, might be better attended to if surrogacy is allowed with extensive regulations. If this practice is made illegal, the opportunity to influence the process and secure the rights of the involved parties is lost. (shrink)

What is human reason, how did it arise, how is it connected to animal reason? In The Enigma of Reason (ER) Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber (2017) suggest that reason evolved driven by the need to support communication and coordination in small human groups. They contrast this to the idea that the function of reason is to enable humans to make better decisions and develop more accurate beliefs. After a summation of the ER argument, the theory is critiqued and two (...) of their assumptions -- that human cognition is based on massive modularity and that reason co-evolved with and is dependent upon language -- are challenged. Alternatives to these assumptions are presented from the perspective of pattern matching processes in neural dynamical systems, which it is asserted provides a more realistic approach to the functioning of the brain and mind. (shrink)