Deep brain stimulation — a novel surgical procedure — is emerging as a treatment of last resort for people diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders such as severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. The US Food and Drug Administration granted a so-called humanitarian device exemption to allow patients to access this intervention, thereby removing the requirement for a clinical trial of the appropriate size and statistical power. Bypassing the rigors of such trials puts patients at risk, limits opportunities for scientific discovery, and gives device manufacturers (...) unique marketing opportunities. We argue that Congress and federal regulators should revisit the humanitarian device exemption to ensure that it is not used to sidestep careful research that can offer valuable data with appropriate patient safeguards. (shrink)

Предназначено для студентов художественных вузов и факультетов, а также для учащихся профессиональных учебных заведений художественного профиля.

As the subtitle indicates, this book is a bibliography. The author’s purpose was to present the important works of philosophical ethics and those of the social sciences as they relate to ethical problems, especially in economics, law, politics, and sociology. Each of these fields is given a full chapter of roughly 50 pages, while the chapter on ethics itself covers 70 pages. Each chapter begins with a few preliminary remarks which, in one page, sketch the most important philosophic topics in (...) that field. The listings in each chapter are then arranged under the following headings: introductory bibliographies to the field; references to general studies ; references to studies of particular periods; to particular countries; to special questions; and to periodicals. The bibliographical study should be of value to anybody interested in interdisciplinary research. It gives one an immediate clue where to go in pursuing an interdisciplinary problem in the field of social sciences, but unfortunately not in all of them. Linguistics and anthropology are totally absent, and psychology has unfortunately no separate place in the book, although one can find it under special headings. While the study can therefore not be called a bibliography of all the social sciences, it is nonetheless truly remarkable in its scope. (shrink)

Gauvin has, for many years, published articles about Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes. What is novel about these articles is that they introduce a new method for the study of Hegel’s Phenomenology. What is exciting about these articles, is that Gauvin’s new method has allowed him to make important clarifications of Hegel’s thought. Thus his article "'Entfremdung’ et ‘Entäusserung’ dans la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit de Hegel" established that Hegel makes a systematic distinction between ‘Entfremdung’ and ‘Entäusserung’, although the first is the (...) result and the limit of the second. (shrink)

Книга адресована психологам, участвующим в разработке и продвижении инновационных проектов, а также всем тем, кто по роду деятельности имеет отношение к организации инновационных сред в образовании, бизнесе и т.д.

In the paper, a philosophical and methodological analysis of the evolution of cybernetics in the context of the development of scientific rationality is carried out. The evolution of cybernetics is represented as a movement from the methodology of “observable systems” and to the methodology of “observing systems” and to the methodology of self-developing reflexive-active environments. Special attention is paid to the formation of a new promising direction for post-non-classical cybernetics of self-developing poly-subject environments, which, given the correlation with previous stages (...) of cybernetics development, we define as thirdorder cybernetics. The analysis of the basics of the formation of third-order cybernetics was carried out with consideration of interrelated aspects: philosophical, methodological, theoretical, and methodical. We also provide model of self-developing poly-subject environments as well as a system of ontologies, defining the mechanisms of functioning of such self-organizing poly-subject environments and active elements that organize the communication space. The ontology system also makes it possible to integrate cybernetics of the first, second, and third order. Some sociohumanitarian trends in the development of cybernetics are considered: from an external observer to a distributed observer; from monodisciplinary to transdisciplinary approaches; from activity approach to subject-activity one, and further to subject-oriented approach; from information to active knowledge; from ethics of goals to ethics of strategic subjects. Potential opportunities for using third-order cybernetics are described, in order to improve the quality of solving a number of important scientific and practical problems of controlling social systems. Information is provided on the directions of approbation of a third-order cybernetics concept for improving state administration, based on a system of distributed situational centers, and there is its approbation at international scientific conferences. (shrink)

L'ordre du discours is the inaugural lecture read by Foucault when he became the successor of J. Hyppolite at the Collège de France. The booklet is a good introduction to the work of the author. It gives a summary of his key ideas, with here and there a couple of suggestive examples. At the end we find an outline of the work the author hopes to fulfill in the future. Foucault sees human history and human civilization as a big effort (...) of discourse-creation. To engage in a discourse though, is a dangerous activity. This danger might be avoided by diminishing the quality of the discourse. It is, however, tricky to escape discourse itself. Foucault now, analyzes the mechanisms by which civilization tries to maintain the quality of the discourse while at the same time protecting the individual against the dangers of it. The author mentions three series of mechanisms: 1) Exclusion: Not every thing can be said. Things are prohibited of entering the discourse. Societies also exclude persons such as the fools from human discourse. Finally, human talk is divided between true and false talk, of which only true talk is to be taken seriously. 2) Appropriation of the unknown: Certain forms of discourse have been given priority, such as commentaries, pieces written by known authors and pieces fulfilling the formal characteristics of a discipline. 3) Limitation of speakers: Not everybody is allowed to use all forms of discourse. Rituals make sure that only appropriate persons talk. The existence of societies protecting a monopoly on certain forms of discourse or the attempt of doctrinal groups to impose orthodoxy are two further examples of the attempt to limit the possible speakers. This being the case, Foucault claims that his philosophical method will not try to find the truth of a discourse, but rather he will in the future show that there is a discontinuous variety of discourses; that a discourse is essentially a violation of the world of things and that we cannot hope to understand the inner meaning of a discourse. The two most provocative ideas put forward in this booklet are that truth is not in the first place an act of intelligence but an act of the will. Foucault talks of a will to truth. The second provocative idea is that all discourse is a violation of the world of the things. To sacrifice the search of truth for the search of the structure of discourse is the essence of structuralism, of which Foucault is the philosophical standard-bearer.—W. V. E. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the relationship between right and law. The author identifies four types of understanding of right: positivist, natural-legal, general social, and the point of view of educational literature. These four types belong to different paradigms of understanding: the philosophical one (theory of natural right) and the legal one (three other points of view). The philosophy of right as a purely philosophical and not a legal discipline uses a philosophical approach to the substantiation of (...) the essence of right. Its fundamental thesis: it is impossible to prove the claims of the right to general validity and obligation if we use the framework of jurisprudence only. In this regard, the statist positivism is subjected to sharp criticism as a theory that rejects the essential difference between right and law and identifies right and law with the activities of the state alone. In philosophy, the right is understood as a system of values that includes fundamental moral and legal ideas and principles. The difference between right and law, their necessary dualism lies in the difference in their genetic nature. The right consists mainly of values that are inherently regulative, whereas the law is a set of norms that have a constitutive essence. This distinction between values and norms and, therefore, between the regulative as such and the constitutive is precisely the philosophical basis for the distinction between right and law. The essence of the regulative as such is based on ontological attitudes of consciousness, which are a priori in their origin. The article concludes with a classification of the functions of right with regard to law. (shrink)

Vor-Worte.--Religion und Psychologie.--Not und Hilfe.--Der Liebe in der Aufbauordnung des Stifterschen Menschenbildes.--De profundis ; eine Auseinandersetzung mit C.G. Jung, Herbst 1945.--Christentum und Humanismus ; ein Gespräch mit Erziehern.

One of the three volumes dedicated to Professor H. Wagner on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. The first is Lehrstücke der praktischen Philosophie und der Ästhetik. As the title indicates, this publication concentrates on ethics, legal philosophy and aesthetics. It approaches these disciplines from a Kantian perspective. The second volume dedicated to Wagner is the fourth number of the 1978 publication of the journal: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. This volume quite appropriately contains historical studies related to Kant or (...) Kantian concepts. It also contains a bibliography of Hans Wagner’s writings. (shrink)

The article discusses the affinity of the ideas of two prominent Russian scholars N.N. Moiseev and V.S. Stepin. This affinity of their ideas is above all expressed in the global scale of their thinking, in their orientation toward the search for the ways of mankind development. Both thinkers sought a way out of the limitations and crisis of technological civilization through the promotion of basic values of harmony in the evolution of society and the biosphere. They made an enormous contribution (...) to the development of both humanitarian and natural sciences areas of knowledge related to social management and development, techonology, economics, law, medicine, ecology, education, etc. They worked in an interdisciplinary areas and were successful integrators of natural science and humanities. Simultaneously with the scientific work, Moiseev and Stepin were excellent teachers and mentors of both young and mature researchers. They have created successful scientific schools that include many dozens of outstanding scientists. They devoted much attention and much time to social work, primarily in various structures of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The affinity of Moiseev’s and Stepin’s ideas is shown in four areas of their activities: overcoming the crisis of technological civilization and the limitations of the concept of sustainable development, research into socio-humanitarian cybernetics, development of advanced education models, implementation of successful scientific diplomacy projects. The author of this article participated in joint research projects with Moiseev and Stepin, the personal communication with them and their ideas significantly influenced author’s life path, interests and research results. (shrink)

In his previous book, La philosophie et les experiences naturelles, A. De Waelhens claims that great philosophers in the past have not only been in dialogue with their predecessors but also that each great philosopher benefited from a confrontation with a non-philosophical experience. This previous book forms the theoretical justification for the present one. Here the author studies the problem of psychosis, with the hope and the intention of contributing to the further development of philosophy. Insofar as philosophy is fascinated (...) with the obligation "Learn to know yourself" or the search for an answer for the question "Who am I," insofar so claims the author, contemporary philosophy cannot afford to bypass psychoanalysis. The book has six chapters and a conclusion, but could easily be divided in three parts. The first part is a survey of the general approach to psychosis and schizophrenia by a selected group of European psychiatrists. The author indicates the crucial shortcomings of each approach and shows how there is among them a gradual turning away from a physiological interpretation of schizophrenia and psychosis towards a psychological one. In Part II, the author uses mainly the theory of Lacan and his disciples to present a coherent theory of psychosis. The crucial concepts are 1) the Oedipus-complex, 2) the mirror stage, 3) the foreclosure of a reference to the father. The Oedipus-complex is well known from Freud’s works although it receives here a more structural interpretation. The mirror stage refers to the events around 6-8 months when the child has to appropriate himself as a unified body, not just a collection of partial elements. This task can be noticed easily when one observes the attitude of the child towards the mirror. Hence the name. In order to perform this task successfully the child needs the support of the mother. The function of the mother is still more important for the third problem: a reference to the father. A healthy development of the child requires that the mother is capable of recognizing and of acknowledging the part played by the father in the creation of the child. This is done in our culture by giving the child the name of the father. Mothers of psychotics often are emotionally unable to tolerate that. They want to situate their child exclusively in relation to themselves: they foreclose any reference to the father. Psychosis is therefore related to the foreclosure of the name-of-the-father. These three crucial concepts allow the author to explain the crucial symptoms of schizophrenia, and to compare it with paranoia and paraphrenia. The third part of the book is a philosophical discussion of the problem of psychosis. The author offers the continental philosophical tradition as a better intellectual framework to study psychosis than the physical framework that Freud used in his Project for a Scientific Psychology and that he never completely abandoned. In the conclusion A. De Waelhens summarizes the direct philosophical consequences of the study of psychosis, the most fascinating being that one has to recognize the priority of language in the constitution of the subject, and that there is a meaningful relation between the way I relate to myself, the things and other people. Two improvements could be made in the book. The first is pedagogical: i.e., a critical bibliography of the crucial works of Lacan and his school and of the phenomenological tradition would have been very helpful for any reader not familiar with one of the two streams of thought. A second improvement would be the inclusion in Chapter One of a discussion of the development which has taken place in the U.S.A. in the explanation of schizophrenia. It is parallel with the development in Europe. A useful reference is E. G. Mishler and N. E. Walker: "Family Interaction Processes and Schizophrenia: A Review of Current Theories," in International Journal of Psychiatry, July 1966, Vol. 2, Number 4. Although the book is difficult, it is very insightful and provocative and it certainly merits translation.—W. V. E. (shrink)

The three volumes that make up Noise in Nonlinear Dynamical Systems comprise a collection of specially written authoritative reviews on all aspects of the subject, representative of all the major practitioners in the field.