Background: When adolescent boys experience close, secure relationships with their parents and peers, the implications are potentially far reaching, including lower levels of mental health problems in adolescence and young adulthood. Here we use rare prospective intergenerational data to extend our understanding of the impact of adolescent attachments on subsequent postpartum mental health problems in early fatherhood.Methods: At age 17–18 years, we used an abbreviated Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment to assess trust, communication, and alienation reported by 270 male (...) participants in their relationships with mothers, fathers, and peers. More than a decade later, we assessed the adult males, now fathers, at 12 months postpartum for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Logistic regression was used to examine the extent to which attachment dimensions predicted paternal postpartum mental health, adjusting for potential confounding, and with assessment for interactions between parent and peer attachments.Results: Trust in mothers and peers, and good communication with fathers during adolescence, were associated with 5 to 7 percentage point reductions in postpartum mental health symptoms in early fatherhood. Weak evidence of parent-peer interactions suggested secure attachments with either parent or peer may compensate for an insecure attachment with the other.Conclusions: Our results suggest that fostering trust and communication in relationships that adolescent boys have with parents and peers may have substantial effects on rates of paternal postpartum mental health problems. The protective benefits may be preventative in intergenerational cycles of risk for mental health problems. (shrink)

John J. Cleary was an internationally recognised authority in ancient Greek philosophy. This volume of penetrating studies of Plato, Aristotle, and Proclus, philosophy of mathematics, and ancient theories of education, display Cleary’s range of expertise and originality of approach.

Ulysses is certainly the greatest novel in the English language, and one might argue for its being the greatest single work of art in our tradition. How significant, then, and how teasing, that this masterwork should be a comedy, and that its creator should have explicitly valued the comic "vision" over the tragic—how disturbing to our predilection for order that, with an homage paid to classical antiquity so meticulous that it is surely a burlesque, Joyce's exhibitionististicicity is never so (...) serious as when it is most outrageously comic. Joyce might have been addressing his readers when he wrote to Nora in 1909: "Now . . . I want you to read over and over all I have written to you. Some of it is ugly, obscene, and bestial, some of it is pure and holy and spiritual: all of it is myself." Joyce Carol Oates is the author of, among others, them, Wonderland, and The Assassins. "Jocoserious Joyce" is part of a book on tragedy and comedy. Her contributions to Critical Inquiry, include "Lawrence's Gotterdammerung" and “The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde's Parable about the Fall". (shrink)

John Cleary, Pádraig Hogan; The Reciprocal Character of Self-Education: Introductory Comments on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Address ‘Education is Self-Education’, Jou.

This book examines Aristotle's critical reaction to the mathematical cosmology of Plato's Academy, and traces the aporetic method by which he developed his own ...

Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any (...) implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking--staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms--if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"--might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject.Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality. (shrink)

This Australian university case study explores the transition to emergency, remote teaching (ERT) in an intensive Block Model curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey investigated academics’ experiences of factors that helped or hindered their transition. A thematic analysis of the data revealed a symbiotic relationship between the Block Model curriculum, professional learning, and academics’ sense of agency as they experienced their transition. We relate our findings to Whittle et al.’s 2020 framework and propose an extended framework based on (...) how teaching was influenced by the changed environment. Drawing on the extended framework, we propose lessons for the future based on how academics were reflectively adapting to ERT. In the four-week Block Model, lessons were learned and applied in the subsequent Block. Critical lessons relevant to higher education institutions include increasing diversity of effective, un-invigilated assessment types, and fostering student wellbeing by facilitating learning spaces where students connect with peers and academics. Furthermore, academics need connections with peers and safe spaces in which to debrief on evolving situations and build confidence in using new learning technologies. Professional learning fostering an emergency-informed, safe learning environment effectively reduces isolation and better prepares institutions for future emergencies. (shrink)

Cleary discusses the origin, development, and use of the many senses of priority as a central thesis in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Cleary contends that one of the most revealing problems for the ambiguity of Aristotle’s relationship to Platonism is that of the ontological status of mathematical objects. In support of his claim, Cleary analyzes a curious passage from Aristotle’s _Topics, _where he appears to accept a schema of priorities that makes mathematical entities more substantial than sensible things. How (...) does Aristotle try to reconcile the ordering of things dictated by sciences like mathematics and dialectic with the ordering of sense experience upon which his own physics and metaphysics are based? To find the answer, Cleary reviews three different outlines of the many senses of priority given by Aristotle himself and found in _Categories _12-13, _Metaphysics _Delta 11, and _Metaphysics _Theta 8. Cleary suggests there is an implicit hierarchy for Aristotle that leads him to posit the Prime Mover at its apex as complete actuality and, therefore, as the focus for the concept of priority. Having reviewed Aristotle’s treatment of the many uses of priority, Cleary demonstrates how the concept is used in some typical arguments by Aristotle for his mature metaphysical positions. (shrink)

In The Myth of Morality, Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed. At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. Joyce argues that natural selection is to blame, in that it has provided us with a tendency to invest the world with values that it does not contain, and demands that it does not make. Should we therefore do away with morality, (...) as we did away with other faulty notions such as witches? Possibly not. We may be able to carry on with morality as a 'useful fiction' - allowing it to have a regulative influence on our lives and decisions, perhaps even playing a central role - while not committing ourselves to believing or asserting falsehoods, and thus not being subject to accusations of 'error'. (shrink)

The pragmatic character of the Dutch book argument makes it unsuitable as an "epistemic" justification for the fundamental probabilist dogma that rational partial beliefs must conform to the axioms of probability. To secure an appropriately epistemic justification for this conclusion, one must explain what it means for a system of partial beliefs to accurately represent the state of the world, and then show that partial beliefs that violate the laws of probability are invariably less accurate than they could be otherwise. (...) The first task can be accomplished once we realize that the accuracy of systems of partial beliefs can be measured on a gradational scale that satisfies a small set of formal constraints, each of which has a sound epistemic motivation. When accuracy is measured in this way it can be shown that any system of degrees of belief that violates the axioms of probability can be replaced by an alternative system that obeys the axioms and yet is more accurate in every possible world. Since epistemically rational agents must strive to hold accurate beliefs, this establishes conformity with the axioms of probability as a norm of epistemic rationality whatever its prudential merits or defects might be. (shrink)

Known in Chinese as Hua-yen and in Japanese as Kegon-kyo, the Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture, is held in the highest regard and studied by Buddhists of all traditions. Through its structure and symbolism, as well as through its concisely stated principles, it conveys a vast range of Buddhist teachings. This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary's definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary's translation of Li Tongxuan's seventh-century (...) guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, "Entry into the Realm of Reality.". (shrink)

This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. The book solves (...) a long-standing problem for Jeffrey's theory by showing for the first time how to obtain a unique utility and probability representation for preferences and judgements of comparative likelihood. The book also contains a major new discussion of what it means to suppose that some event occurs or that some proposition is true. The most complete and robust defence of causal decision theory available. (shrink)

Introduction IN RECENT YEARS there has developed in the West considerable interest in the philosophy of Hua-yen Buddhism, a holistic, Unitarian approach to ...

Atheism is a familiar kind of skepticism about religion. Moral error theory is an analogous kind of skepticism about morality, though less well known outside academic circles. Both kinds of skeptic face a "what next?" question: If we have decided that the subject matter (religion/morality) is mistaken, then what should we do with this way of talking and thinking? The natural assumption is that we should abolish the mistaken topic, just as we previously eliminated talk of, say, bodily humors and (...) unicorns. The fictionalist, however, offers a less obvious recommendation. According to the fictionalist, engaging in the topic in question provides pragmatic benefits that do not depend on its truth-in a way roughly analogous to engaging with a novel or a movie. The religious fictionalist maintains that even if we were atheists, we should carry on talking, thinking, and acting as if religion were true. The moral fictionalist maintains a similar view regarding moral talk, thought, and action. Both forms of fictionalism face serious challenges. Some challenges can be levelled at either form of fictionalism (or at any form of fictionalism), whereas others are problems unique to moral fictionalism or to religious fictionalism. There are important questions to be asked about the relationship between these two kinds of fictionalism. Could moral fictionalism be plausible even if religious fictionalism is not (or vice versa)? This is a volume of thirteen previously unpublished papers on the topics of religious fictionalism, moral fictionalism, and the relation between these views. (shrink)

Many male traits are well explained by sexual selection theory as adaptations to mating competition and mate choice, whereas no unifying theory explains traits expressed more in females. Anne Campbell's “staying alive” theory proposed that human females produce stronger self-protective reactions than males to aggressive threats because self-protection tends to have higher fitness value for females than males. We examined whether Campbell's theory has more general applicability by considering whether human females respond with greater self-protectiveness than males to other threats (...) beyond aggression. We searched the literature for physiological, behavioral, and emotional responses to major physical and social threats, and found consistent support for females' responding with greater self-protectiveness than males. Females mount stronger immune responses to many pathogens; experience a lower threshold to detect, and lesser tolerance of, pain; awaken more frequently at night; express greater concern about physically dangerous stimuli; exert more effort to avoid social conflicts; exhibit a personality style more focused on life's dangers; react to threats with greater fear, disgust, and sadness; and develop more threat-based clinical conditions than males. Our findings suggest that in relation to threat, human females have relatively heightened protective reactions compared to males. The pervasiveness of this result across multiple domains suggests that general mechanisms might exist underlying females' unique adaptations. An understanding of such processes would enhance knowledge of female health and well-being. (shrink)

Locked inpatient units are an increasing phenomenon, introduced in response to unforseen abscondences and suicides of patients. This paper identifies some value issues concerning the practice of locked psychiatric inpatient units. Broad strategies, practicalities and ethical matters that must be considered in inpatient mental health services are also explored. The authors draw on the published research and commentary to derive relevant information to provide to patients and staff regarding the aims and rationales of locked units. Further debate is warranted in (...) relation to best practice. Inpatient staff need to be aware of their practice values, be able to access education and supervision and negotiate apparent contradictions. Further patient/clinician focused enquiry is necessary to mitigate the negative and stigmatising effects of locked mental health units. (shrink)

Cleary experiments with a “community of inquiry” to his high school Intro-level Philosophy course to express an alternative method for ethics through various poems and writing exercises such as “War and a Soldier” by Edgar Jablons, “Murder” by Paul Silverman, and “The Beaten Path” by Sylvia Schneider.

More than a decade of exacting scientific research involving paleontological fragments and ancient DNA has lately produced a series of pronouncements about a purportedly novel population of archaic hominins dubbed “the Denisova.” The science involved in these matters is both technically stunning and, socially, at times a bit reckless. Here I discuss the responsibilities which scientists incur when they make inductively risky pronouncements about the different relative contributions by Denisovans to genomes of members of apparent subpopulations of current humans. This (...) science is sensational: it is science which empirically speculates, to the public delight’s and entertainment, about scintillating topics such as when humans evolved, where we came from, and who else we were having sex with during our early hominin history. An initial characterization of sensational science emerges from my discussion of the case, as well as a diagnosis of an interactive phenomenon termed amplified inductive risk. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote a great deal on sexual love and friendship, to help us understand Doctor Stephen Strange's relationship challenges. Nietzsche thought that sexual love is a distraction from more important things, like being a superhero. For Strange, it is actually his narcissism that is holding him back the most. It is not only Strange's brilliance and passion for wisdom that are reminiscent of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, but also his flirtation with nihilism. The (...) problem that Doctor Strange, Nietzsche, and Zarathustra all face: forming meaningful loving relationships. Nietzsche never had a girlfriend and he never married. While Nietzsche knew his philosophy would not be for everyone, he hoped that a few brave people would understand the virtues of striving toward the ideal of the Ubermensch. For Nietzsche, great friends help one another to become better people through “a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them”. (shrink)

Déjà vu is the striking sense that the present situation feels familiar, alongside the realization that it has to be new. According to the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis, déjà vu results when the configuration of elements within a scene maps onto a configuration previously seen, but the previous scene fails to come to mind. We examined this using virtual reality technology. When a new immersive VR scene resembled a previously-viewed scene in its configuration but people failed to recall the previously-viewed scene, (...) familiarity ratings and reports of déjà vu were indeed higher than for completely novel scenes. People also exhibited the contrasting sense of newness and of familiarity that is characteristic of déjà vu. Familiarity ratings and déjà vu reports among scenes recognized as new increased with increasing feature-match of a scene to one stored in memory, suggesting that feature-matching can produce familiarity and déjà vu when recall fails. (shrink)

This collection of eminently practical advice from the likes of Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Pythagoras, and Aristotle covers subjects as diverse as money, child-raising, politics, philosophy, law, and relationships--all aspects of life and how to live it. Thomas Cleary has translated these sayings and aphorisms from the Arabic sources that preserved Greek thought throughout the Middle Ages. Many of the texts no longer exist in the original Greek. Included in the book is an appendix that presents resonant sayings and fragments (...) from Buddhist, Taoist, and Muslim sources, demonstrating the universal quality of the teachings of the Greek sages and hinting at the interaction between Western and Eastern cultures. (shrink)

Existentialism and Romantic Love investigates the thinking of five existential philosophers (Max Stirner, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir) to uncover fresh insights about what is wrong with our everyday ideas about romantic loving, why reality often falls short of the ideal, sources of frustrations and disappointments, and possibilities for creating authentically meaningful relationships.

... Dans le De principiis d'Origene, le chapitre 9 du tome II concerne le debut de la creation du monde, c'est-a-dire, selon la perspective de 1'auteur, ...

Background: After their attempts to have patient safety concerns addressed internally were ignored by wilfully blind managers, nurses from Bundaberg Base Hospital and Macarthur Health Service felt compelled to ‘blow the whistle’. Wilful blindness is the human desire to prefer ignorance to knowledge; the responsibility to be informed is shirked. Objective: To provide an account of instances of wilful blindness identified in two high-profile cases of nurse whistleblowing in Australia. Research design: Critical case study methodology using Fay’s Critical Social Theory (...) to examine, analyse and interpret existing data generated by the Commissions of Inquiry held into Bundaberg Base Hospital and Macarthur Health Service patient safety breaches. All data was publicly available and assessed according to the requirements of unobtrusive research methods and secondary data analysis. Ethical considerations: Data collection for the case studies relied entirely on publicly available documentary sources recounting and detailing past events. Findings: Data from both cases reveal managers demonstrating wilful blindness towards patient safety concerns. Concerns were unaddressed; nurses, instead, experienced retaliatory responses leading to a ‘social crisis’ in the organisation and to whistleblowing. Conclusion: Managers tasked with clinical governance must be aware of mechanisms with the potential to blind them. The human tendency to favour positive news and avoid conflict is powerful. Understanding wilful blindness can assist managers’ awareness of the competing emotions occurring in response to ethical challenges, such as whistleblowing. (shrink)

Many legal arguments pertaining to equal rights for gay and lesbian families have relied upon empirical research on the `healthy' childraising environment of these families. While neither disputing recent legal gains nor diminishing their importance, this article looks at some of the conceptual categories that drive this research. The limitations of such research, as salutary as it is, are typically understood in terms of their obvious political context. Such research avoids highlighting any differences between gay/lesbian families and traditional families because (...) an emphasis on such differences feeds cultural stereotypes that are damaging to non-traditional families. This article takes a different tack, looking at how the concepts that frame research are based in binaries and fantasies about families and sex that we argue are too limiting. It assumes that the elision of sexuality within such studies is symptomatic of a broader repression of a variety of meanings of family. In response, the article brings in queer theory and psychoanalysis to broaden our approach to understanding new forms of family and kinship initiated by gay and lesbian families. The article addresses single household lesbian families that are most frequently the object of empirical research. (shrink)

To judge people's true character, pay careful attention to what they do, not to what they say; to develop human resources successfully, first develop your own skills and resources; be exacting without being needlessly demanding; and don't dwell on the present but always look to future goals. These are just a few of the insights revealed in this basic course on how to recognize, organize, and develop human resources. Drawing on essential sources - such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, (...) and the I Ching - Thomas Cleary shows what today's business executives, personnel managers, and political leaders can learn from these ancient Asian traditions about the inner dynamics of human interaction. Among the selections are passages from an important but less well-known work, The Thirty-six Strategies, which summarizes the powerful techniques of the Asian "art of advantage". Also provided are short, accessible introductions to Confucianism, Taoism, The Art of War, and the I Ching, along with lists of resources for further reading. (shrink)

Honor, fearlessness, calm, decisive action, strategic thinking, and martial prowess have been the hallmarks of the Japanese samurai culture through the ages. Their ethos is known as bushido, or the way of the warrior-knight. Here is an insider’s view of the samurai—their moral and psychological development, the ethical standards they strive to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing their ideals. Thomas (...) class='Hi'>Cleary has collected writings on bushido by warriors, scholars, political advisors, and educators from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries that provide a comprehensive, historically rich view of samurai life and education. The selections deal with a broad range of subjects—from military strategy and political science to personal discipline and character development. Cleary includes an introduction to each piece, putting it into historical context and presenting biographical information about the authors. This is an essential read for martial artists and anyone interested in samurai history, but it will also appeal to readers in the fields of government, military, religion, and education. (shrink)

Moral skepticism is the denial that there is any such thing as moral knowledge. Since the publication of The Myth of Morality in 2001, Richard Joyce has explored the terrain of moral skepticism and has been willing to advocate versions of this radical view. Joyce's attitude toward morality is analogous to an atheist's attitude toward religion: he claims that in making moral judgments speakers attempt to state truths but that the world isn't furnished with the properties and relations (...) necessary to render such judgments true. Moral thinking probably emerged as a human adaptation, but one whose usefulness derived from its capacity to bolster social cohesion rather than its ability to track truths about the world. Essays in Moral Skepticism gathers together a dozen of Joyce's most significant papers from the last decade, following the developments in his ideas, presenting responses to critics, and charting his exploration of the complex landscape of modern moral skepticism. (shrink)

Anthony Everett has argued that fictional realism entails that there are metaphysically indeterminate identity facts and that there are true contradictions. Ross Cameron and Brendan Murday independently reply to Everett’s arguments by proposing a view on which fictional realism entails merely linguistic indeterminacy and does not entail true contradictions. While I agree with the idea behind Murday’s and Cameron’s view, the specific details have some undesirable consequences about sentences containing an ‘according to the fiction’ operator. Furthermore, they cannot give a (...) uniform semantics for sentences containing an ‘according to the fiction’ operator. I will offer a friendly amendment to Murday’s and Cameron’s view that avoids these undesirable consequences and has a uniform semantics. I will then extend Murday’s and Cameron’s reply by replacing a principle that Everett relies on in posing his objections with a new principle. This new principle will go some way toward meeting a challenge posed by Everett to provide adequate criteria of identity for fictional characters. (shrink)

Following Kripke and Putnam, the received view of chemical kinds has been a microstructuralist one. To be a microstructuralist about chemical kinds is to think that membership in said kinds is conferred by microstructural properties. Recently, the received microstructuralist view has been elaborated and defended, but it has also been attacked on the basis of complexities, both chemical and ontological. Here, I look at which complexities really challenge the microstructuralist view; at how the view itself might be made more complicated (...) in order to accommodate such challenges; and finally, at what this increasingly complicated picture implies for our standard assessment of chemical kindhood—primarily, for the widespread assumption that chemical kinds in general are more neat and tidy than those messy biological ones. _1_ The Received View _2_ A Taxonomy of Chemical Kinds _3_ Atomic Number _4_ H2O, H3O+, OH−, and More _5_ Complicating the Microstructuralist Picture _6_ Concrete and Other Mixtures _7_ Macromolecules, Especially Proteins _8_ Abandoning Sameness of Elemental Composition _9_ Not So Different after All. (shrink)

What is Justice? Society depends on justice for its stability and the well-being of its members. Justice is usually carried out in accordance with the established law. Justice can be grounded in societal norms, human and religious values, and/or established civil law. Generally, justice seeks to ensure fair treatment for all of humanity. This article sets forth the justice context for understanding andoperationalzing restorative justice by first explaining a variety of types of justice to lay a foundation for understanding the (...) complexity of the concept of justice. Following the typology, a review of the concept of restorative justice, addressing its beginnings, practitioners, key concepts, principles, values, practices, and description is given. Finally, examples from my teaching experience at a maximum security prison enhance my understanding of restorative justice as restoring the humanity of us all. (shrink)

Isaac Levi has long criticized causal decisiontheory on the grounds that it requiresdeliberating agents to make predictions abouttheir own actions. A rational agent cannot, heclaims, see herself as free to choose an actwhile simultaneously making a prediction abouther likelihood of performing it. Levi is wrongon both points. First, nothing in causaldecision theory forces agents to makepredictions about their own acts. Second,Levi's arguments for the ``deliberation crowdsout prediction thesis'' rely on a flawed modelof the measurement of belief. Moreover, theability of agents (...) to adopt beliefs about theirown acts during deliberation is essentialto any plausible account of human agency andfreedom. Though these beliefs play no part inthe rationalization of actions, they arerequired to account for the causalgenesis of behavior. To explain the causes ofactions we must recognize that (a) an agentcannot see herself as entirely free in thematter of A unless she believes herdecision to perform A will cause A,and (b) she cannot come to a deliberatedecision about A unless she adoptsbeliefs about her decisions. FollowingElizabeth Anscombe and David Velleman, I arguethat an agent's beliefs about her own decisionsare self-fulfilling, and that this can beused to explain away the seeming paradoxicalfeatures of act probabilities. (shrink)

Some Bayesians have suggested that beliefs based on ambiguous or incomplete evidence are best represented by families of probability functions. I spend the first half of this essay outlining one version of this imprecise model of belief, and spend the second half defending the model against recent objections, raised by Roger White and others, which concern the phenomenon of probabilistic dilation. Dilation occurs when learning some definite fact forces a person’s beliefs about an event to shift from a sharp, point-valued (...) subjective probability to an imprecise spread of probabilities. Some commentators find dilation disturbing, both from an epistemic and a decision-theoretic perspective, and place the blame on the use of sets of probabilities to model opinion. These reactions are based on an overly narrow conception of imprecise belief states which assumes that we know everything there is to know about a person’s doxastic attitudes once we have identified the spreads of values for her imprecise credences. Once we recognize that the imprecise model has the resources to characterize a much richer family of doxastic attitudes than this, we will see that White’s charges of epistemological and decision theoretic incoherence are unfounded. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Alexandra Kertz-Wezel, “The Magic of Music”Joyce Eastlund GromkoIn her paper, "The Magic of Music," Kertz-Wezel proposes that music be "a means to transform emotions and experience life more intensely." She goes on to speculate that "not only the way of listening and performing Western European art music in educational settings, but also the music itself may prevent individuals from further involvement in classical music." Her goals (...) are involvement [End Page 117] in art music and a deepening and enhancing of individuals' lives through aesthetic experience. Kertz-Wezel grants as reasonable the idea that education should start with an individual's experience 1 and should follow with a series of "intensive musical experiences." With all of this, I can agree.However, whereas we share the goal of transformative music education through aesthetic experience, we differ in the means by which we would accomplish our goal and we differ for philosophical reasons. Kertz-Wezel promotes an approach to music experience that celebrates individuality and a return to Romanticism.2 By contrast, I have developed an approach to music experience that depends on collaborative music-making and that emphasizes the social and interpersonal context, as opposed to the individual. I would like to describe how my approach, contrary to the individualistic approach espoused by Kertz-Wezel, nevertheless accomplishes the goal of transformative music education.My approach is grounded in principles abstracted from the writings of John Dewey.3 Like Dewey, I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of an individual's powers by the demands of the social situations in which individuals find themselves.4 Therefore, in the schools that serve as field and research sites for our university, we create communities of musical practice in which individuals gain the full and ready use of all their capacities while performing newly composed art music.5 Every year a set of new works are composed especially for our students by composers at our university. Through the process of actualizing a piece of art, our students are "stimulated to act as member(s) of a unity, to emerge from (their) narrowness of action and feeling, to conceive of (themselves) from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which (they) belong."6 The image of a fully engaged community member stands in stark contrast to that of the young woman in Kertz-Wezel's paper who, in describing her experience at the rock concert, said, "You don't think about what you are doing. You do what you feel like, without even thinking about it." When in a trance, individuals are detached from, not connected to, their physical surroundings.7 When in a state of ecstasy, individuals are carried beyond rational thought and self-control.8 It is impossible for me to imagine how an individual in a state of semi-conscious detachment, lacking in rational thought and self-control, can be learning.9Students in communities of musical practice are fully conscious of the value that they have to the group and "the value is reflected back into them."10 They learn to listen intently to other performers within the ensemble. They learn to communicate with one another in the symbol system of music and their musical babblings are transformed into articulate language.11 They become literate when they actualize into musical art what is embedded in the abstract symbols in a score. Through the process of actualizing pieces of musical art, students [End Page 118] heighten their perceptions and strengthen their connections. They have the kind of aesthetic experience described by Dewey:The material of esthetic experience in being human—human in connection with the nature of which it is a part—is social. Esthetic experience is a manifestation, a record and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means of promoting its development, and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality of a civilization. For while it is produced and is enjoyed by individuals, those individuals are what they are in the content of their experience because of the cultures in which they participate.12The active, social, music-making approach to music education has considerable resource implications for... (shrink)

MODERN ARISTOTELIAN SCHOLARSHIP is heavily indebted to the German scholars of the nineteenth century who produced the Berlin Academy editions of Aristotle's corpus and of his Greek commentators. The foundations for this massive project were laid around the middle of the century by people like Schwegler, who edited and commented on Aristotle's Metaphysics. Yet, while acknowledging our debt to such exemplary scholarship, I want to cast doubt on one of his proposed emendations to Metaphysics 6.1, which influenced later editors like (...) W. D. Ross and Werner Jaeger. (shrink)

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In Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective, Joyce Slochower brings a contemporary relational framework to bear on Winnicott's notion of the analytic holding environment. She presents a fresh, thought-provoking, and clinically useful integration of Winnicott's seminal insights with contemporary relational and feminist/psychoanalytic contributions. Seeking to broaden the concept of holding beyond work with severely regressed patients, she addresses holding in a variety of clinical contexts and focuses especially on holding processes in relation to issues of dependence, self-involvement, and hate. (...) She also considers clinical work with patients "on the edge" - patients who seem deperately to need a holding experience that remains paradoxically elusive. Slochower begins her study by questioning the therapeutic limitations of an interactive style. There are times, she proposes, when certain patients simply cannot tolerate evidence of the analyst's separate subjective presence and instead need a holding experience. Though this holding function is essential to work with difficult patients, it enters into the treatment of all patients, whether as figure or ground. Slochower's relational understanding of holding leads her to consider the impact of holding on patient and analyst alike. Throughout, she emphasizes the analyst's and the patient's co-construction, during moments of holding, of an essential illusion of analytic attunement; this illusion serves to protect the patient from potentially disruptive aspects of the analyst's subjective presence. Slochower's case vignettes helpfully illuminate the intersubjective aspects of the holding process, including the clinical picture when a holding frame fails. She elaborates her thesis by considering the therapeutic function of holding in mourning. And she concludes her study with a cogent examination of the theoretical and clinical limitations of working with a holding process. A welcome reprise on an essential Winnicottian theme, Holding and Psychoanalysis broadens and deepens our understanding of the therapeutic role of the analyst's holding function. (shrink)