This essay reads Julia Kristeva’s ‘novel-essay’ on St. Teresa of Avila, Thérèse mon amour, as a form of relationship to literature we can also see suggested, though not theorized, in Kristeva’s critical thought. Thérèse mon amour performs feats of interpretation and intimacy with St. Teresa’s writing that rehearse key tenets of her theology, but that also revive and re-open questions at the heart of Kristeva’s theoretical matrix, questions of narcissism and love, metaphor and language. The essay traces these questions in (...) Kristeva’s oeuvre, proposing that Thérèse mon amour exposes unexpected affinities between a Kristevan ethics of relationship and the radical dilemma of faith in St. Teresa. The two are united, I suggest, by the fraught project of writing love. (shrink)

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, (...) devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits - creative diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings - that shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to social sciences and humanities scholars, as each offers philosophical insight into mathematics and how we might live mathematically. (shrink)

These works provide a rich introduction to some of the processes needed in transitions from injustices to more humane relationships. They address different levels of moral repair—between individuals, between individuals and groups, and between political collectives.

Trait mindfulness confers emotional benefits and encourages skillful emotion regulation, in part because it helps people more deliberately attend to internal experiences and external surroundings. Such heightened attentional control might help skillfully deploy one’s attention towards certain kinds of stimuli, which may in turn help regulate emotions, but this remains unknown. Testing how trait mindful people deploy attention when regulating their emotions could help uncover the specific mechanisms of mindfulness that confer its emotional benefits. The present study aimed to determine (...) whether high trait mindfulness is associated with sustained attention biases to (i.e. longer gaze at) emotional scenes, when all participants are given the emotion regulation goal of staying in a positive mood. To measure this, we used eye tracking to assess selective attention to positive, neutral, and negative photographs. Higher trait mindfulness was associated with both a stronger attention bias for positive (vs. neutral and vs. negative) images, as well as greater success staying in a positive mood during viewing. Surprisingly, this attention bias towards the positive images did not mediate the relationship between mindfulness and maintenance of positive mood. Future work should compare visual attention to other emotion regulation strategies that may maximise positive affect for mindful people. (shrink)

After decades of marginalization in the secularized twentieth-century academy, moral education has enjoyed a recent resurgence in American higher education, with the establishment of more than 100 ethics centers and programs on campuses across the country. Yet the idea that the university has a civic responsibility to teach its undergraduate students ethics and morality has been met with skepticism, suspicion, and even outright rejection from both inside and outside the academy. In this collection, renowned scholars of philosophy, politics, and religion (...) debate the role of ethics in the university, investigating whether universities should proactively cultivate morality and ethics, what teaching ethics entails, and what moral education should accomplish. The essays quickly open up to broader questions regarding the very purpose of a university education in modern society. Editors Elizabeth Kiss and J. Peter Euben survey the history of ethics in higher education, then engage with provocative recent writings by Stanley Fish in which he argues that universities should not be involved in moral education. Stanley Hauerwas responds, offering a theological perspective on the university’s purpose. Contributors look at the place of politics in moral education; suggest that increasingly diverse, multicultural student bodies are resources for the teaching of ethics; and show how the debate over civic education in public grade-schools provides valuable lessons for higher education. Others reflect on the virtues and character traits that a moral education should foster in students—such as honesty, tolerance, and integrity—and the ways that ethical training formally and informally happens on campuses today, from the classroom to the basketball court. _Debating Moral Education_ is a critical contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role and evolution of ethics education in the modern liberal arts university. _Contributors_. Lawrence Blum, Romand Coles, J. Peter Euben, Stanley Fish, Michael Allen Gillespie, Ruth W. Grant, Stanley Hauerwas, David A. Hoekema, Elizabeth Kiss, Patchen Markell, Susan Jane McWilliams, Wilson Carey McWilliams, J. Donald Moon, James Bernard Murphy, Noah Pickus, Julie A. Reuben, George Shulman, Elizabeth V. Spelman. (shrink)

Some names, specifically the proper names by which people are called, are considered “a mess” by at least one prominent contemporary philosopher.Although I quote from a number of Rufus’s works, there are two on which this paper is primarily based, both written when Rufus was a master of Arts in Paris, before 1238. I refer to the first as the Urmetaphysics. The second is a two-part treatise which Professor Wood has called the Contra Averroem. The Urmetaphysics is Rufus’s first commentary (...) on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, only very recently discovered by Professor Wood. It is to be distinguished from his second Metaphysics commentary which I refer to as th e Main Metaphysics Commentary. The Contra Averroem is comprised of “De ideis” and “De causa individuationis,” of which “De ideis” deserves a special mention. Discovered by Professor Timothy Noone, it w as first transcribed by Noone and Wood in 1990. Recently, Professor Noone has kindly sent me a revised transcription, for which I am very grateful. This transcription is quoted here.With the exception of “De ideis,” all quotations from Rufus are based on transcriptions made or revised by Professor Wood. Citations will indicate the relevant folio numbers of the manuscript or manuscripts on which the transcription is based. The manuscript itself, when first referred to, will be identified by the name of the city in which the library which houses it is located, the abbreviated name of the library, and its codex number.“All in all, proper names are a mess and if it weren’t for the problem of how to get the kids to come fo r dinner, I’d be inclined to just junk them” (David Kaplan, “Dhat,” Syntax and Semantics, vol. 9, ed. Peter Cole; repr. in Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, ed. P. French et al. (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1979, pp. 383–400, p. 386). Looking at the matter from the perspective of medieval philosophy, we might say that the reason such names are semantically ill-behaved is that the act of naming from which they d erive is not one of adequate naming. Moreover, supposing that all manner of beings, including people, are “things,” we might let adequate naming be governed by the following principle: an agent adequately names a thing if and only if, knowing its proper nature, she bestows a name on the thing by considering that nature. Obviously, on this principle, the acts of naming from which people in our societies derive their names are not acts of adequate naming. (shrink)

In this paper I re-state the egalitarian argument against the morality of immigration controls: such limits violate the central ethical commitment to moral equality. This means that immigration controls fail a fundamental moral test and represent the ethical failure of the liberal project of moral equality. I set this re-statement against recent arguments about what moral equality means, specifically Christopher Heath Wellman's use of Elizabeth Anderson's notion of relational equality. Wellman believes that Anderson's ideas seriously damage the egalitarian argument, (...) but I argue that this is a misreading of her account. I conclude that any liberal attempt to morally justify immigration controls must fail through committing the basic logical error of ‘begging the question’. (shrink)

This article suggests a way to circumvent some of the problems that follow from the lack of consensus on a definition of emotion (Izard, 2010; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981) and emotion regulation (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004) by adopting a conceptual framework based on discrete emotions theory and focusing on specific emotions. Discrete emotions theories assume that neural, affective, and cognitive processes differ across specific emotions and that each emotion has particular motivational and regulatory functions. Thus, efforts at regulation should (...) target the specific dysregulated emotions. The positive effects of emotion regulation are more likely to be optimized when they result from or lead to emotion utilization—the constructive use of the energy of emotion arousal. Effective processes for regulation differ for basic emotions and emotion schemas. This article identifies neural systems that facilitate emotion experiences and emotion regulation processes. It considers the implications of the developmental change from basic emotions to emotion schemas, and also briefly discusses the effects of interventions on changes in emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social and emotional competence. (shrink)

This is a review of What is a Mathematical Concept? edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, and Alf Coles. In this collection of sixteen chapters, philosophers, educationalists, historians of mathematics, a cognitive scientist, and a mathematician consider, problematise, historicise, contextualise, and destabilise the terms ‘mathematical’ and ‘concept’. The contributors come from many disciplines, but the editors are all in mathematics education, which gives the whole volume a disciplinary centre of gravity. The editors set out to explore and (...) reclaim the canonical question ‘what is a mathematical concept?’ from the philosophy of mathematics. This review comments on each paper in the collection. (shrink)

Romand Coles here explores the writings of Augustine, Foucault, and Merleau-Ponty in order to fashion an ethos that emphasizes the value of dialogical relationships between the self and others. In his view, each of these thinkers has made significant contributions that must figure in any reconsideration of the relationship between the self, ethics, and power. Whereas Augustine saw depth as the dimension of freedom and truth, according to Coles's reading, Foucault regarded depth as "that dimension in which we (...) rout out the other and constitute ourselves in light of hegemonic norms implanted deep within us." After drawing out those aspects of Foucault's thought which point toward a "dialogical artistic ethics," Coles explores Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of depth, arguing that it elucidates the "intercorporeality" of the world in a way that emphasizes the value of our dialogical relations with different others. In conclusion, he brings the three thinkers together to assess their rhetorical and philosophical similarities and differences, and to argue against the tendency to see all postmodern thought as nihilistic and incapable of developing an ethico-political stance. Coles's highly original work seeks to provide an alternative to the positions that have structured most recent debate in political philosophy. Thus, his book points up difficulties in both the individualist and the communitarian readings of politics and ethics, even as it seriously explores the ethical dimensions and possibilities of postmodernist thought. His attempt to develop an ethos based on a specific conception of selves and the world enables him to cast provocative light on the continuing dialogue between rationalists and relativists about the nature of both selves and our social and political institutions. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hermeneutical Injustice and Best PracticeAlasdair Coles, PhD, MRCP (bio)To a doctor who routinely sees people with psychosis and neurological conditions causing strange experiences, José Porcher’s paper is challenging and troubling.Challenging, because the accusation of hermeneutical injustice is accurate. In the hurly burly of the emergency department or a government outpatient clinic, doctors resort to reductionism, for the sake of urgent efficiency. A person becomes a “case of psychosis” (...) and the immediate questions are: “Should they be admitted? Are they fit to make their own decisions? What medication should we prescribe?” In that context, spending time on analyzing the contents of the delusions, and acknowledging their meaning to the individual, is a luxury. Most doctors, burnt out by COVID and struggling to get people basic healthcare, will probably be unconcerned about hermeneutical injustice. But, disdain for the experience of psychosis leads to loss of trust between patient and doctor, as nicely illustrated by Heriot-Maitland, Knight, and Peters’ first patient. One consequence is that patients withhold information they imagine will not be well received by the medical profession. In my experience, of studying the rare entity of people with epilepsy that causes pleasurable or even religious experience, the patients have usually not discussed this with their doctor (Coles & Collicut, 2019) A tangible medical consequence is that their doctors are not aware of the risk of non-compliance with anticonvulsant drugs, so that they are at risk of serial seizures or even sudden death.Porcher’s uncritical appreciation of the Avraham case worries me. Although one of the two therapists is described as “particularly well-versed in Jewish custom and lore” (Bilu et al., 1990), they are not believers. Yet, they take on priestly roles. For instance, after identifying Avraham’s “the Black” as a demon (“which the patient did not belie” [Bilu et al., p. 110]), they prescribe incantations based on Jewish exorcism rites. And, once Avraham was better, he and his wife attributed his “miraculous cure” to the therapists who they regarded as “pious and pure hearted” (Bilu et al., p. 116). Not only are Avraham’s secular therapists being disingenuous, it is dangerous for seculars to appropriate religious language, concepts, and customs. In particular, clumsy use of exorcism rituals can lead to long-term spiritual distress. Those ministers of religion who practice deliverance [exorcism] are highly trained, not least to respect the importance of asking for psychiatric [End Page 239] help. It is unwise not to return the professional favor. Avraham’s therapists should have called in a Jewish minister, trained in clinical pastoral care, to assist them.Key issues are raised by Porcher’s analysis of the Femi case. Femi presented with a psychosis that included religious content. This is common (Sofou et al., 2021): religious imagery is present in 5% to 50% of cases of psychosis, assessed by repeated studies across multiple cultures. The medical team concluded Femi had a psychosis, because his symptoms caused him harm (social isolation, absence from work). Porcher rightly condemns Femi’s therapists because they undermined his dignity, by invalidating his experience of God. And Porcher goes on to state the “both–and” view, that something can be psychopathology and a religious experience. So far so good. But what Porcher does not allow is that some people experience psychoses with very harmful and dark religious imagery, invalidation of which is therapeutic. So, when Porcher asks “what could ever justify someone in the judgment that someone’s religious experiences are illegitimate?” the answer is: compassion. Schizophrenia is not fun. And the disease causes hallucinations that have no relation to reality; to the person I saw recently who believed her clothes were eating her, how helpful would it be to validate the nonsense of clothes with teeth? It follows that some religious delusions may be just that. And people are helped by knowing that. That is the reality of care of the deluded patient. For those therapists who just assume all religious content is inauthentic, Porcher’s article stands as a useful corrective. But assuming the opposite may be as harmful or more. There has to be judgement somewhere along the line. Best practice is that this is done... (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth Century England. By Michael MacDonald. Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community. By Sue E. Estroff. Mind, Mood, and Medicine: A Guide to the New Biopsychiatry. By Paul H. Wender, M.D. and Donald F. Klein, M.D.

This essay is a critical engagement with recent assessments of comparative religious ethics by John Kelsay and Jung Lee. Contra Kelsay's proposal to return to a neo-Weberian sociology of religious norm elaboration and justification, the authors argue that comparative religious ethics is and should be practiced as a field of study in active conversation with other fields that consider human flourishing, employing a variety of methods that have their roots in multiple disciplines. Cross-pollination from a variety of disciplines is a (...) strength of comparative ethics, which has enlivened recent and ongoing research on ethics, not a problem to be resolved by convergence on a single, distinctively comparative project. The authors also argue in response to Lee and Kelsay that while individual comparative studies of virtue and personal formation can be flawed in various ways, this line of research has been productive and at times very compelling. Moreover, attention to comparative virtue ethics shows how scholarship on some ethical topics necessitates drawing on a variety of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds, a conclusion relevant to all work in religious ethics today. (shrink)

Prior research has examined value antecedents to sustainable consumption, including religious or cultural values. We bridge together these usually separated bodies of literature to provide an ethically-based examination of both religious and cultural values in one model to understand what drives sustainable consumption as well as outcomes on consumer well-being. In doing so, we also fulfill calls for more research on socio-demographic antecedents to ethical consumption, particularly in the domain of sustainable consumption. We examine this relationship using data from the (...) religiously and culturally diverse country of Singapore, collected from a door-to-door, representative sample utilizing numerous quality control techniques. Our path analysis and logical follow-up tests reveal that both religious and cultural values influence sustainable consumption, and then sustainable consumption positively influences consumer well-being. Implications are provided for consumer ethics, business’ ethical practices, and belief congruence theory. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Healer's Power. By Howard Brody.

... [T]here manifestly is not one drop of principle in the whole vast reservoir of established scientific theory that has sprung from any other source than the power of the human mind to originate ideas that are true. But this power, for all it has accomplished, is so feeble that as ideas flow from their springs in the soul, the truths are almost drowned in a flood of false notions; and that which experience does is gradually, and by a sort (...) of fractionation, to precipitate and filter off the false ideas, eliminating them and letting the truth pour on in its mighty current. But precisely how does this action of experience take place? It takes place by a series of surprises. Throughout the.. (shrink)

Researchers have proposed that blocking facial feedback via glabellar-region botulinum toxin injections can reduce depression. Random-effects meta-analyses of studies that administered GBTX...

We show that for every enumeration degree $a there exists an e-degree c such that $a \leq c , and all degrees b, with $c \leq b , are properly Σ 0 2.

This book draws on the authors' wide range of experience, to provide a greater understanding of the different dimensions of environmental engagement. It is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, design and health sciences.

When Cool finally realized that false memories had been planted, she sued the psychiatrist for malpractice. In March 1997, after five weeks of trial, her case was settled out of court for $2.4 million. Nadean Cool is not the only patient to develop false memories as a result of questionable therapy. In Missouri in 1992 a church counselor helped Beth Rutherford to remember during therapy that her father, a clergyman, had regularly raped her between the ages of seven and 14 (...) and that her mother sometimes helped him by holding her down. Under her therapist's guidance, Rutherford developed memories of her father twice impregnating her and forcing her to abort the fetus herself with a coat hanger.The father had to resign from his post as a clergyman when the allegations were made public. Later medical examination of the daughter revealed, however, that she was still a virgin at age 22 and had never been pregnant. The daughter sued the therapist and received a $1-million settlement in 1996. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to mount a challenge to gesture-first hypotheses about the evolution of language by identifying constraints on the emergence of symbol use. Current debates focus on a range of pre-conditions for the emergence of language, including co-operation and related mentalising capacities, imitation and tool use, episodic memory, and vocal physiology, but little specifically on the ability to learn and understand symbols. It is argued here that such a focus raises new questions about the plausibility of (...) gesture-first hypotheses, and so about the evolution of language in general. After a brief review of the methodology used in the article, it is argued that existing uses of gesture in hominid communities may have prohibited the emergence of symbol use, rather than ‘bootstrapped’ symbolic capacities as is usually assumed, and that the vocal channel offers other advantages in both learning and using language. In this case, the vocal channel offers a more promising platform for the evolution of language than is often assumed. (shrink)

This paper addresses responses to news about the imposing of a local lockdown in a UK city. The opposition to the measure shows it to be controversial as does the associated rejection of the grounds for taking action against covid more generally, which comes alongside the devaluing of expertise, resistance to public health responses, a proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation and the harm that can be caused by focussing on non-adherence to covid measure. The research question for this analysis (...) is therefore: how are arguments about the local lockdown discursively formulated in online discussions? Discursive analysis of online discussions following four newspaper articles identified six arguments used that range from scepticism to conspiratorial: scepticism over (1) the prevalence and; (2) severity of covid; (3) lockdowns generally do not work and (4) the specific city lockdown will not work; (5) lockdowns are overly risk averse; and (6) there are hidden political motives for lockdowns. The discussion shows how both the ‘conspiratorial’ and non-conspiratorial arguments are potentially harmful from a public health perspective. (shrink)