In this article I share some of my experiences of practising Korean Zen meditation and how, without ever mentioning the word ‘mindfulness,’ this practice helps us to become mindful. This leads me to suggest that the main ingredients of Buddhist meditation are samatha (which I will translate here as ‘concentration’) and vipassanā (which I will call ‘experiential enquiry’). No matter which Buddhist tradition one follows, the practice of samatha and vipassanā will lead to the cultivation of mindfulness. I also intend (...) to show how the traditional doctrine of the ‘four great efforts’ is very close to therapeutic methods advocated in MBCT. I will also propose that the Buddha's five methods of dealing with difficult thoughts as presented in the Vitakkhasa hāna Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 20) are examples of an early Buddhist cognitive behavioural strategy. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Les violences subies pendant l’enfance peuvent gravement affecter le développement et la santé des mineurs. La clinique de la violence chez l’enfant et l’adolescent et son traitement sont très spécifiques. Pédiatres et médecins légistes ont ainsi créé la Société française de pédiatrie médico-légale ( sfpml ) afin de penser les violences faites aux mineurs, du repérage à l’expertise, pour proposer des actions adaptées à leur particulière vulnérabilité et penser la prévention. L’enfant doit être un sujet de soins et non pas (...) un objet d’investigation. La pédiatrie médico-légale promeut une pratique intégrée dans une dynamique de parcours de soins. L’expérimentation nationale « Santé protégée » a pour objectif d’améliorer la santé globale de ces enfants et adolescents en facilitant l’accès aux soins, le suivi et la coordination. Il paraît important aujourd’hui de mener des actions de prévention et de soins et d’assurer un accompagnement sécurisant des enfants pour limiter l’impact des violences et leur permettre de bien grandir. (shrink)

An adaptation of an occupational therapy journal has been set up to support trainees in the development of their reflective competencies. A suggestion had been made to write a reflexive statement during their clinical experience. However, the implementation of this pedagogical reflexive approach proved difficult to implement given that it depended on the student’s initiative or the supervisor’s willingness to use them. Following this observation, an evaluation of the project was carried out. This article presents the results of this evaluation (...) process. This approach intended to 1. describe the rationale for using reflective journals in occupational therapy; 2. document the impact of reflective writing in occupational therapy; 3. briefly assess the use of reflective statements; 4. describe elements to be considered in assessing the quality of reflections. The evaluation process made possible to retain several elements from the research and theoretical concepts to support the assessment of the reflection. (shrink)

La sociología de la literatura da explicación de las condiciones de existencia de lo literario en Bélgica y de su rivalidad inevitable con la institución francesa. Es posible señalar, entre estos dos campos literarios, vínculos diacrónicos de connivencia, con particular relieve entre el Simbolismo y el Surrealismo desarrollado en ambos países: comparten el rechazo de las constricciones que tiranizan al individuo y la defensa de la escritura como vía de liberación hacia una vida más plena. A la vez, la sociología (...) de lo literario nos permite advertir las diferencias, cruciales, entre el Surrealismo de André Breton y el de Paul Nougé. (shrink)

Being able to self-regulate one’s learning is essential for academic success but is also very difficult for students. Especially first year students can be overwhelmed with the high study load and autonomy in higher education. To face this challenge, students’ monitoring and self-regulated learning processes are crucial. Yet, often students are not aware of effective SRL strategies or how to use them. In this study, the use of a mobile application with gamification elements to support first-year university students’ SRL processes (...) was investigated. In Study 1a, the Ace your self-study app was implemented in a first-year psychology course, and students’ SRL skills, motivation, self-efficacy, app use and satisfaction, and performance were measured. The results showed a significant increase in autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and metacognitive self-regulation skills across the 5-week course. Moreover, students who used the mobile application with gamified elements showed higher autonomous motivation. Nevertheless, most students used the app only for a limited number of self-study sessions. In Study 1b, students’ self-study experiences were captured using focus group interviews to shed some more light on why students did or did not use the app. The results show that if students feel they do not need support for their SRL processes during self-study, they are less inclined to use the app. Specifically, regarding using study strategies, it was found that only if students’ strategies do not work well in their perception, they feel the need to change their way of studying and choose another strategy. These results are discussed in the context of theory on SRL and how to support it. (shrink)

Je ne dirai pas, pour désigner Archéologie du sujet, les livres d’Alain de Libera, car même si nous avons deux volumes, et si la série doit se poursuivre, ce n’est pourtant jamais que d’un seul livre qu’il s’agit, d’un même individu livre, dans son identité diachronique (2007, 2008). Archéologie du sujet aurait pu ne pas s’appeler Archéologie du sujet, et pourtant le livre aurait été le même individu, sous une autre description, qui aurait été l’équivalent français du titre donné en (...) 1994 par... (shrink)

Without guidance, students typically overestimate their understanding and memory of learning materials, which can have detrimental effects on the learning process. However, most students do not receive guidance or instruction about how to study. Moreover, students are largely unaware of strategies to self-regulate their learning and study effectively. Research has shown that prompting both cognitive and metacognitive strategies is effective to support self-regulated learning. Therefore we developed a mobile application, the Ace your self-study app, to prompt both cognitive and metacognitive (...) strategies to support learning processes. In this article a theoretical background, description of the app’s features and design choices are presented. Also, data from the application in presented to give provide an idea of how the app has been used. (shrink)

In the last two decades, Ralph Cudworth has been acknowledged as one of the paramount figures in the history of theories of consciousness. This paper discusses the interpretation defended by Udo Thiel and Vili Lähteenmäki. Both contend that, for Cudworth, the reflexivity defining consciousness does not constitute self-consciousness, which, they say, requires self-determination for practical ends. On the contrary, I argue that for Cudworth any degree of consciousness implies a species of self-perception that must be considered a degree of self-consciousness. (...) To do justice to Cudworth’s full position, I claim, we must take into account a kind of consciousness that I call ‘to-oneself ’ consciousness. Furthermore, I argue, the problem of the ethical self-formation of every human soul as one personality should be seen as going beyond the mere consideration of practical rationality. (shrink)

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology. It needs no ambient light, nor the guidance of the human eye to capture and reproduce a likeness of the world around us. Although LiDAR generates a constant stream of technical literature, LiDAR images, once envisaged for their aesthetic and expressive value, seem to call for alternative modes of analysis. How do we approach the fast-expanding archive of scanner images? How do we adequately describe the intriguing, spectral visualizations that its (...) blind process of recording produces? Following a general introduction, I look at Anouk De Clerk’s filmThing(2013), a work entirely comprised of LiDAR images. De Clerk encourages us to envisage LiDAR counterintuitively, not as the product of technological novelty, but as part of an interdisciplinary history of the arts. (shrink)

Résumé Le refus par Arnauld, en 1641, de la thèse cartésienne d’une fausseté des idées, et non des seuls jugements, est habituellement analysé en fonction de l’admission, vue comme un revirement sous l’influence des Quatrièmes réponses, des idées de la sensation comme idées fausses dans la Logique. J’essaie au contraire de rapporter ce refus seulement aux textes des Méditations et des Premières réponses qui lui servent d’appui. Arnauld construit son objection en sorte que la thèse des idées fausses apparaisse en (...) contradiction avec la doctrine cartésienne même des idées. Ce n’est nullement la fausseté des idées de la sensation, mais la fausseté des idées tout court, qui est sa cible, et ses écrits ultérieurs manifestent une forme de continuité avec les raisons de sa critique initiale, plutôt qu’un simple abandon de cette dernière. (shrink)

This paper seeks to circumscribe the concepts, sources, and limits of Nietzsche’s early ethical thought through a reconstruction of his ethical "symptomatology." In the 1870s, Nietzsche stressed that the Greeks understood the true nature of the political phenomenon, and that this could correct fundamental errors that were responsible for the illness of German culture. His definition of the Greek ethos radically challenges modern democratic politics through a reassertion of aristocratic, heroic, and agonistic values. But because Nietzsche did not systematically describe (...) his early ethics, a reconstruction is necessary. His metaphor of the philosopher as a “physician of culture” is a guide for this reconstruction. Using concepts of wellness and illness, Nietzsche identified different symptoms and possible remedies, and hoped to cure German culture through a therapeutic transvaluation of modernity. To reconstruct this symptomatology I turn to The Greek State, Homer’s Contest, and The Birth of Tragedy. First, I define the notions of “agon” and “eris” that are central to his reading of Greek ethics. I then describe four ethical symptoms and their remedies. I conclude with interpretative hypotheses that address issues that were left unanswered by Nietzsche. This symptomatology shows that his reading of Greek ethics functions as a radical—albeit fragmentary—normative critique of his time, and of our democratic age. (shrink)

Pascal’s wager was sometimes viewed in the eighteenth-century as an argument conquering its whole demonstrative force not in the Pensées but in a passage of Locke’s Essay Concerning the Human Understanding (II, XXI, § 70) dealing with the preference to be given to a virtuous life when considering the possibility of another eternal life. In this paper, I intend to show that this interpretation is ill-founded. The argument of the wager highlights the discrepancy between the requirements of alethic reason on (...) the one side and of practical reason on the other side: the wager is to be seen not as a proposition, but as an act. When emphasizing the conditions on which this act can conform to rationality, the argument used of in the Pensées puts the comparison between a unity (my life ante mortem) and a multiplicity (other possible lives post mortem) on the front of the stage, in combination with a reckoning of the chances of winning or losing the bet on God’s existence. The reduction ad absurdum of the act of betting against God’s existence is deduced from a double infinitization, not only quantitative (an infinity of lives), but also qualitative (a reiterating infinity of happiness) of the second member in the comparison. Now, the case is different in Locke’s argumentation. Its reading is vitiated if we deem that the § 70 in the Essay II, XXI consists in a self-sufficient demonstration, understandable by itself. Through a close examination of the chapter XXI in its entire, it appears on the contrary that the thesis of an alleged improvement or even of a mere equivalent of Pascal’s wager in the Essay is defeated by the necessity to put back Locke’s own argument in its true place, actually as the result of a complex enquiry on the principle of the determination of the will. (shrink)

Kenelm Digby’s Two Treatises, of the Nature of Bodies and of the Nature of Mans Soule defends quite an idiosyncratic approach to mind-body dualism. In his use of the divisibility argument to prove that the human soul cannot be a material substance, Digby takes an uncompromising stand for merely potential material parts. In his Treatise of Bodies the present article focuses on the mode of construction of the definition of quantity as divisibility and on its links to two distinct fundamental (...) arguments against the actual material parts doctrine. The first, positive, argument consists of a semantic reason drawn from Digby’s general doctrine of meaning, whereas the second, negative, argument, addresses the traditional question of the composition of the continuum. The latter, the author contends, does not build on the medieval controversy itself, but on Digby’s opposition to Galileo’s claim of indivisibilism in his Dialogues Concerning Two Sciences. (shrink)

La tradition manuscrite de la lyrique occitane nous a transmis quatre recueils, tous réalisés en Vénétie à la fin du xiiie siècle, qui sont décorés de miniatures évoquant chaque troubadour en tête des poèmes qui lui sont attribués. Parmi eux se sont glissées quelques femmes trobairitz. Huit d’entre elles sont ainsi représentées en train de chanter, mais dénuées de tout caractère individuel. À défaut de pouvoir révéler qui ont été ces poétesses-musiciennes dont l’identité souvent incertaine laisse planer un doute quant (...) à leur existence réelle, ces images témoignent d’abord de la célébrité dont elles bénéficiaient plusieurs décennies après leur disparition dans les milieux lettrés italiens. Images stéréotypées, rehaussées par l’éclat des fonds d’or et le chatoiement des couleurs, elles relèvent avant tout d’une fiction destinée à mettre en évidence la « noblesse », tant morale que sociale, des personnages. De telles représentations ne pouvaient mieux répondre à l’idéal même de la fin’amor, l’amour courtois : en elles se cristallise une vision idéale de la dame inaccessible et parfaite, la domna, chantée par les troubadours. (shrink)

In ethics, the use of empirical data has become more and more popular, leading to a distinct form of applied ethics, namely empirical ethics. This 'empirical turn' is especially visible in bioethics. There are various ways of combining empirical research and ethical reflection. In this paper we discuss the use of empirical data in a special form of Reflective Equilibrium (RE), namely the Network Model with Third Person Moral Experiences. In this model, the empirical data consist of the moral experiences (...) of people in a practice. Although inclusion of these moral experiences in this specific model of RE can be well defended, their use in the application of the model still raises important questions. What precisely are moral experiences? How to determine relevance of experiences, in other words: should there be a selection of the moral experiences that are eventually used in the RE? How much weight should the empirical data have in the RE? And the key question: can the use of RE by empirical ethicists really produce answers to practical moral questions? In this paper we start to answer the above questions by giving examples taken from our research project on understanding the norm of informed consent in the field of pediatric oncology. We especially emphasize that incorporation of empirical data in a network model can reduce the risk of self-justification and bias and can increase the credibility of the RE reached. (shrink)