Today’s world is one of quick civilization changes, influencing the development of human thought and the understanding of many basic values. Particularly the last decades have posed a concrete question about freedom and its limitations. The value of freedom is still today being reborn and restructured, once suspicious as a source of sin, now a challenge and a responsible task for the human. Similar questions have also arisen as to the ideas of human dignity and mutual respect, as inherent parts (...) of the human condition.The contemporary world, despite being a new era in human history, does not, in fact, differ much from the Europe of the Middle Ages—divided and united by Christianity, paradoxical in that we strive to build solidarity and closeness and at the same time feel lost and helpless against the evil of the world. With that knowledge we may avoid unnecessary tragedies, learning from St. Francis times, where there was everything in that world—wars, fears, diseases on the one hand, asceticism and self-denial on the other—but no joy. A question may arise whether the voice of St. Francis would still be heard and listened to today. Whether his example would teach love, ecumenism and evangelical joy.The word «ecumenism» is and has been widely used, but often without any deeper reflection on its rich history and variety of meanings. Against the divisions and hatred of contemporary world, the idea of ecumenism increases its importance, becoming one of the main areas of Christian concern. Vatican II brought about a new era of ecumenical thinking, not only defining the theological basis for dialogue, but most importantly, showing its value and encouraging active participation of the faithful. Such participation requires, however, a man’s inner change–which cannot occur without appropriate formation and everyday practice of ecumenism. That presupposes respect for the other, pursuance of mutual trust, openness to widely understood cooperation and elimination of prejudice and fears. Such formation and change must encompass everyone without any difference, laymen and clergy, the faithful and the searching, so that the actions show true concern for the human as such. In that sense, ecumenism is an “inner conversion” (as says A. Skowronek), a new attitude towards the other—religion, human, culture.Against the above mentioned background, one can say that St. Francis exceeded whole centuries of ecumenical dialogue. However, to analyze his phenomenon, one must concentrate on the historical picture, leaving aside any strictly legendarymythological images.St. Francis’s popularity seems to be—almost irrationally—growing with the passage of time, despite not offering anything new or revealing. As a matter of fact, St. Francis reappears in all centuries, teaching the Christian message and teaching to love. His humanism is realized in kindness, solidarity, authentic respect and pure love of God and the human. The human is central in St. Francis’s thinking—great, beautiful and dramatic, full of dignity, and full of the conflict of his inborn goodness and threatening evil. The key to understanding him is only love, assuring freedom and spiritual richness. Yet St. Francis claims: Love is not loved. Re-reading the Gospel anew is a way to meet that Love, and oneself.The human always needed love. Love is inextricably connected with goodness and hence a positive relation towards the other. Those qualities, together with respect, acceptance and search for the truth, are also fundamental to ecumenism. Love appears to be the answer. St. Francis loved not only God, not only the human, but he loved and praised the beauty of all of God’s creation, his love being “the most literal realization of the message contained in the Gospel” (K. Starczewska). But as the first step to love and respect is for the human to respect his own dignity in himself. In that way, he shall also discovers his right to freedom and the truth about himself.The conclusion is the following: Undoubtedly, the character of St. Francis is a universal one. He spoke of his love of God—and human—in concrete deeds of love, never in abstract concepts. Tradition and legend have partly made St. Francis to a cheerful, carefree troubadour of love; however, he knew well the modern world, with its disagreements, hatred and half-truths. A simple tool in God’s hand, he made others overcome the prejudice in them and shake hands in reconciliation, practicing good deeds. Whether that still happens today, and the world adopts St. Francis’s humanistic attitude, depends also on us. (shrink)

The object of the study is the works of the American doctor, journalist, marathon runner, popularizer of running and thinker George Sheehan (1918-1993), first introduced into scientific circulation by Russian researchers of the philosophy of sports: "Running and being: a complete experience" (1978) and "The main thing with Sheehan: 30 years of running wisdom of the legendary Dr. George Sheehan" (2013). The subject of the study is the cultural content of amateur stayer running, its personality-creating potential, explicated from these works. (...) The achievement of the cognitive goal is connected with the comprehension of the life path of Dr. Sheehan, his philosophical authorities, anthropological views, the phenomenology of running experience, as well as the social effect of the ideas he propagated. Recognized as the founder of the emerging philosophy of running, J. Sheehan considers amateur stayer running as an activity during which a qualitative transformation of the athlete's personality occurs, associated with the possibility of achieving religious and mystical contact with the primordial and deep dimensions of his being, providing creative impulses and insights. Using the example of his own life, the American researcher describes the bodily determined basic contradictions of the aspirations of an amateur stayer and the social environment, and also sees in running activity and the effects generated by it the foundations of their conjugation. Stayer running is understood by Dr. Sheehan as an environment of moral and volitional formation of an individual, aimed at comprehending his originality and affirming the personal meaning of existence, gaining ideological competence. The researcher fruitfully reveals the humanistic dimension of running on the basis of such concepts and existentials as "body wisdom", "game", "heroism", "running experience", "connection with the Absolute", "unique potential". Dr. Sheehan believes that the usual health-related arguments in favor of running are "pathetic ideas" compared to gaining the ability to live at your true level, to hear the "call of being" addressed to the individual, to achieve your "original splendor", to become the best version of yourself. (shrink)

_Resumo_ Este artigo tem por objetivo problematizar a ideia de ser a América Latina um espaço do _puro contingente_, como defende o filósofo argentino Enrique Dussel. Recorrendo a um evento extraordinário do século XIX, a Revolução Haitiana, defendemos a ideia que, mesmo no espaço colonial, é possível encontrar a circulação e a defesa de ideias universais. Mais do que isso, essa revolução apresenta um bom exemplo de como podemos refletir sobre a _universalidade hegeliana_, elaborada por dois grandes pensadores contemporâneos: Susan (...) Buck-Morss e Slavoj Žižek. _ _ _Palavras-chave: _Dussel; Buck-Morss; Žižek; universalidade hegeliana. _ _ _Abstract_ _ _ This article aims to problematize the idea of Latin America being a space of _pure contingent_, as defended by the Argentine philosopher Enrique Dussel. Using an extraordinary event from the 19th century, the Haitian Revolution, we defend the idea that, even in the colonial space, it is possible to find the circulation and defense of universal ideas. More than that, this revolution presents a good example of how we can reflect on the _Hegelian universality_, elaborated by two great contemporary thinkers: Susan Buck-Morss and Slavoj Žižek. _ _ _Key-words: _Dussel; Buck-Morss; Žižek; hegelian universality. _ _. (shrink)

Fostering an organization’s core values using a humanistic management approach that balances economic benefits and human ends has been elusive for large-scale changes within organizations in the engineering sector. Resilience, agility, mindfulness, transparency, kindness, integrity, compassion, good stewardship, socially minded citizens, human well-being, sustainability, and many other humanistic management-oriented terms have become increasingly prevalent. In the post-COVID-19 pandemic world, people worldwide are concerned about how social, political, and environmental factors affect them. This study highlights humanistic management as (...) a core value for engineering companies. We present empirical evidence on companies that demonstrate humanistic management principles and offer examples of companies that have used shared sacrifices to retain their employees. This study provides lessons for managers seeking to influence future workplaces as change agents. (shrink)

Medical, scientific and societal progress has been such that, in a universalist humanist perspective such as the WHO’s, it has become an ethical imperative for the primary endpoints in evidence based health care research to be expressed in e.g. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). The classical endpoints of discrete health‐related functions and duration of survival are increasingly perceived as unacceptably reductionistic. The major problem in ‘felicitometrics’ is the measurement of the ‘quality’ term in QALYs. That the mental, physical and social (...) domains, each containing many dimensions and items, all contribute to QOL is uncontroversial. What is controversial, is the weight of the different dimensions in overall QOL. It has been shown to be very different between different patient populations. In human individuals, assuredly complex systems, the many dimensions and items of QOL observably interact, probably sometimes also in chaotic ways. In these conditions, the weights of isolated items in individuals become for all practical purposes meaningless. Therefore, the much used multi‐item questionnaires at best describe, but do not evaluate QOL, neither in individuals, nor in populations. For example, allergic patients treated with cetirizine scored better than those a placebo on all dimensions of the SF‐36, a standard QOL questionnaire. Here there is no serious doubt that the treatment improved QOL, because it is highly unlikely that any important dimension on which the patient groups would have scored otherwise is missing in the SF‐36. However, whether piracetam treatment of acute stroke, which improved the surrogate endpoints neurological and functional scores, also improved QOL is plausible, but will be proven only when comprehensive QOL measurement will have been done. And suppose in randomised populations of end‐stage metastatic solid cancer patients, one would compare palliative last‐line chemotherapy with only palliative care, and one would, as can be expected, find no significant differences in average survival, and chemotherapy superior for the mental domain, but inferior for the physical comfort domain: we would not know which treatment, on aggregate, would be the better. The problem is that QOL is an individual and emergent construct, the resultant of a great many intractions, and of a different order than its contributing components. Overall QOL can therefore best be captured only as the Gestalt of a global self‐assessment. Just as people in everyday life, while acting under uncertainty, make global assessments all the time, so they can seriously answer the serious question: ‘How have you been?’ A solemn, practical, non peer‐relativistic, non‐cultural, experiential, and well tolerated way to obtain such responses is Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA), in which the subjects' memories of the best and the worst times in their life experience define their individual scale of QOL. ACSA is thus both exquisitely idiosyncratic, and yet can in a universalist humanistic perspective be considered generic. Using both a multi‐item questionnaire and a global assessment allows by one logistic regression, to estimate the weights of the dimensions and items in populations, and thus identify those whose improvement would most contribute to the QOL of the greatest number. A combined approach to measurement of QOL is necessary to maximise the utility of QOL interventions. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to characterize the professional good served by the humanities as various academic disciplines, particularly in relation to the general academic good, namely, the pursuit of knowledge in theoretical and scholarly research, and to evaluate the public and ethical dimension of that professional good and the constraints it imposes upon practitioners. My argument will be that the humanities aim at both knowledge of objective facts and acknowledgement of the human status of their subject matter, and (...) that there are facts about human life and society that are inaccessible except through such humanistic acknowledgement. As such, the humanities require the adoption of evaluative, other-oriented points of view, and they serve the public by advancing a reflective view of the very conditions of the public’s own constitution. In short, the humanities incorporate the view that practical and evaluative wisdom is not only essential for the full pursuit of truth, but that it is also an essential public good in any well-ordered society, especially in contemporary democracies. The discussion proceeds by examining various examples of both the professional and the public good in question, and focuses particularly on cases of excessive acknowledgement in the form of uncritical apologetics and excessive objectification in various forms of reductionism. (shrink)

Heidegger's philosophical project is generally seen as atheoretical and anti-logical because he remarked on the subjective conditions of knowledge and the everydayness of human behaviors. To him, Dasein's everyday reasoning is coercively and inevitably framed by the present-at-hand modes of understanding. Heidegger alerts us about the possible origins of present-at-hand modes of everyday experience. One of them is Das Man that, is associated with a categorical otherness for Heidegger. It can be regarded as an origin of the primordial scheme of (...) experiences for Dasein that takes those experiences for granted as an axiological ground for their lives in the World. Heidegger sees that process as an inauthentic condition for Dasein's fundamental character. Everyday reasoning generates a variety of present-at-hand instruments to understand and interpret the World and Dasein itself; thus, Dasein moves between Das Man and authentic modes. With a Heideggerian approach, this article observes how the characters in the film Druk take themselves out of Das Man and go into the authentic mode and how they do this through alcohol. The primary data source is Druk and the four teacher characters in the film. In the movie, alcohol is not a ready- to-hand object but a tool motivating its users and pushing them to perform. It is an example equivalent to the Heideggerian analogy of the hammer. The movie is a well-fitting example of the Heideggerian position with the story of four teachers who experiment with having a certain amount of alcohol in their blood to achieve a better version of themselves. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of humanism both in modern discourse and in historical retrospective. Human has always been at the center of philosophy, regardless of what spheres of being were studied. Anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, and many other sciences explore various manifestations of a person, all of which are ultimately designed to answer perhaps one of the most critical questions – what makes us human? However, this discourse significantly changed over the course of two thousand years. For (...) class='Hi'>example, Martin Heidegger points out an important nuance of the emergence of the concept of humanism, namely, as a kind of chauvinism – the division into humans (Romans) and non-humans (barbarians). This point of view is often overlooked, but it is critical to understanding the essence of this phenomenon. In the subsequent era of the Middle Ages, human was understood as the opposite of the divine, but in such realities, there were humanistic ideals and values. Already in the Renaissance, a return to the traditions of antiquity was announced, but the understanding of a person acquired a romantic character. Humanism clearly saw something more in a person than a person himself could demonstrate. It is for this metaphysical image that many critics of humanism have criticized this phenomenon. However, where there is criticism, there is progress, which is why this concept has gained a new round of discourse, which is why new trends have appeared that have brought the concept of humanism to a new theoretical level. As a historical phenomenon, humanism is faced with certain difficulties of new eras; because of these collisions, humanism is modified and adapted. Among humanism’s problems are multiculturalism, technological breakthroughs, and the need to search for new theories. In its development, the course of humanism takes on various forms and iterations. It is worth mentioning transhumanism (the idea of becoming someone more than just a human), posthumanism (philosophical views on human nature as a posthuman), and global humanism. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to try to identify the specificity and frequency of cyber-agression as a form of problem behaviour characteristic for the contemporary youth known as Generation Y. Analysis of the results of research conducted among schoolchildren aged 15–16 indicates that cyber-agression is a common phenomenon in the group. It raises the need for reconstruction and re-evaluation of practices and standards developed to date and implemented to address the problematic behaviour of young people through the global network. (...) In the paper, proposals for solutions in this area are presented, which can be used to create future prevention programs aimed at constructive online behaviour and foster rational choice-making regarding the use of the Internet and modern media. (shrink)

This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne State in early 2007) addresses risk assessment and cost benefit analysis as mechanisms in counterterrorism policy. It argues that although policy is often best pursued by agreeing to set aside deep foundational differences, in order to obtain a strategic plan for an activity such as counterterrorism, foundational differences must be addressed in order that policy not merely devolve into a policy minimalism that is always and damagingly tactical, never strategic, (...) in order to avoid domestic democratic political conflict. The article takes risk assessment in counterterrorism, using cost benefit analysis, as an example of a foundational disagreement that cannot easily be elided. Examining an extreme, indeed crude, recent example of cost benefit analysis applied to the risks of terror and the costs of counterterrorism - John Mueller's widely noticed Overblown - the article suggests that cost benefit analysis, at least applied in this way, runs roughshod over other important values in counterterrorism policy, such as justice, but in addition, makes radical yet unstated assumptions about what cost benefit analysis seeks to compare in establishing counterterrorism policy or estimating the risks and costs of terrorism - unstated assumptions that, in fact, assume the conclusion. The article notes that cost benefit analysis tends to promote a policy-minimalizing "event specific catastrophism" - seeking above all to prevent simply the next, serial terrorist attack, with however no greater strategic vision. Indeed, the article says in conclusion (as Philip Bobbitt has noted) cost benefit analysis is "relentlessly tactical," not strategic; it also tends toward serial 'event specific catastrophism' as its analytic frame; and it is a method of evaluating proposed courses of action, not generating them, and hence promotes a strategically questionable tendency to reaction as a response to terrorism. This article presents these ideas in brief fashion, however, as the first draft in a larger project on cost benefit analysis and counterterrorism, and it does so by reference to a book that is unabashedly crude in its approach to both cost benefit analysis and terrorism/counterterrorism. The critical project will extend beyond this particular article, which is in effective a a first pass at developing a critique. It is also an article that does not extend beyond events of early 2007 (when the original address was given) and should be read in that light. (shrink)

The unity of science movement was itself far from unified. There may have been unity on the rallying call for a unity of science but that is as far as it went. Not only was there disagreement among the main protagonists on what was meant by the unity of science, but also on how to achieve it. In this paper I shall deal with Edgar Zilsel’s (1891-1944) conception. It represents an interesting break with the more programmatic approaches of Carnap, Neurath; (...) Zilsel emphasizes the need for an empirical demonstration of the unity of science, which has interesting meta-philosophical implications. The unity of science is not just central to his research programme; it is what constitutes the latter’s unifying principle, although this is far from evident if one takes a look at the historical essays he published in exile in the USA during the 1940s. (These important essays on the emergence of science, well known among historians of early modern science, have given rise to the so-called Zilsel Thesis, which holds that modern science came into being when, between 1300 and 1600, the social barriers between those who ‘labored with there minds and tongues’, i.e. the university scholars and the humanists, and those who ‘worked with their hands’, i.e the superior artisans, eroded because of the rise of free-enterprise capitalism.) But simultaneously, he also published a couple of smaller and far less known essays, directed against Southwest-German Neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Windelband), Dilthey’s philosophy of life, and interpretative sociology (Max Weber, W. Sombart, G. Simmel, R. Stammler, Alfred Weber, etc.). His main argumentwas that philosophers of cultural science and the humanities had a falseunderstanding of natural science. Because of this false understanding, they erroneously postulated a fundamental methodological difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences. According to Zilsel, this difference does not exist. In his view the historian is basically confronted with the same problems as the natural scientist. If the science of history is not compared with classical mechanics but with, for example, geophysics – that is, “the physics of earthquakes, sea-currents, volcanology, and meteorology” – one will arrive at the conclusion “that historical phenomena are hardly more difficult to predict than the weather, and certainly no more difficult than earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. What would scientists think of a geophysicist who abandoned the search for geophysical laws because of their inexactness? ” (SOMS: 202). (shrink)

The article discusses the relationship of the axiological foundations of modern bioethics with casual and even incidental effects of the activity of scholars in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The author examine the ability of humanists to influence the formation of values system as well as the possibility of instrumentalizing these values in social practices. The study determines the entire causal complex that led to the formation of a special tradition of non-religious substantiation of values associated with the (...) teaching and study of ancient languages in the context of the functioning of political and legal institutions and cultural and historical traditions of European states. The author considers the origins and meaning of humanism and the gradual change of its content as well as the transformation of humanistic experience into a tool of constructing ideals and values and an element of social technology. A special place is given to the analysis of attempts to form meta-ethics and bioethics within the framework of the value system of post-Soviet Russian society and the role of humanistic ideas in this process. On the example of the development of modern European philosophical thought, the controversial and problematic nature of various interpretations of humanism is shown, and the thesis of the historical conditionality of the ideals of humanism and its connection with some certain paradigms of metaphysic is confirmed. The central theme of the article is the problem of the relationship between the historical and conceptual, conditional and unconditional, contextual and universal in the heritage of the late medieval humanism. Technologization paths and contexts for the interpretation of humanistic ideas in modern Russia are outlined. The paper determines the ways of harmonization of humanitarian values and the system of their social and legal legitimation. On the example of the educational policy of higher education in recent decades, achievements and failures in the process of forming a new value system are analyzed. This value system could be used as a basis for legislative practice and state policy that would allow determining the basis of modern bioethics, which is of great importance for the development of Russian society and further improvement of the moral and legal foundations of its existence. (shrink)

The present paper offers a general introduction to the first Polish post¬war translation of the Tabula of Cebes. It discusses the general structure of the text and its major arguments. Subsequently, some speculations on the philosophical affinity of the author of the text are given and the nature of its reception is dealt with. Furthermore, the article presents also a brief history of allegorical interpretation in Greece and touches upon the most important exegetical tendencies that hitherto have appeared in European (...) culture. The article is followed by the first Polish postwar translation of the Tabula of Cebes. (shrink)

Humanism in forensic psychiatry: the use of the tidal nursing modelThe humanist school of thought, which finds resonance in many conceptual models and theories designed to guide nursing practice, needs to be understood in the context of the total institution, where the individual is subjected to amortification of the self, and denied autonomy. This article will engage in a critical reflection on how humanism has influenced nursing theorists and the subsequent production of conceptual models and theories, especially as they relate (...) to the field of forensic psychiatric nursing. Although humanism provides optimism for nurse–patient relations, this article explores the incapability of such a philosophy to acknowledge the power relationships between individuals and its inability to explain the day‐to‐day realities experienced in forensic nursing, where the possibility of interpersonal violence reshapes nursing care. The tidal model will be discussed in detail as an example of a recently developed humanistic nursing model. Viewed from this perspective, it is clear that humanistic philosophy and its subsequent models of care are in discordance with the highly specialized field of forensic nursing. (shrink)

A Cinematic Humanist approach to film is committed inter alia to the following tenet: Some fiction films illuminate the human condition thereby enriching our understanding of ourselves, each other and our world. As such, Cinematic Humanism might reasonably be regarded as an example of what one might call ‘Cinematic Cognitivism’. This assumption would, however, be mistaken. For Cinematic Humanism is an alternative, indeed a corrective, to Cinematic Cognitivism. Motivating the need for such a corrective is a genuine scepticism about (...) the very notion of the cognitive. Using historical reconstruction, I reveal how ‘cognitive’ has become a multiply ambiguous, theory-laden term in the wake of, indeed as a consequence of, Noam Chomsky’s original stipulative definition. This generates a constitutive problem for cognitivism as both a research programme and a set of claims, and as such poses a trilemma for philosophers of film, art and beyond. I propose a Cinematic Humanist solution to the problematic commitments of cognitive film theorising and, in so doing, gesture towards a methodology I am calling ‘philosophy of film without theory’. (shrink)

The idea or indeed the possibility of self–change is rarely discussed in general terms, though many religious aims relate to it. I wish to introduce aset of concepts relevant to the understanding of the idea; and to exhibit the Buddhist path, as described in the Pali texts, as an example of radical self–change. The general concepts and the particular example will have muchto do with the senses in which, when a person acts or intends, the action or intention (...) is truly his; and so will involve an examination of the notion of self–control. (shrink)

Is freedom and capability enough to sustain our well-being? For human flourishing to progress, defer, and avoid decline, managers as persons must grow in virtue to transcend to the ultimate source of the good. In our definition of a person we develop an anthropology of gift through the communication of one self to another and whose form is love, the willing the good of the other. We ask four questions about the humanistic manager as a person: what is the (...) goal, end, good; what form, structure guides the manager; what materials, resources, technology, and context does the manager use within the structure to meet the end and exceed the goals, what is the means of effecting the change needed to meet the manager’s goals. Each of these questions form the basis to construct a philosophical anthropology of humanistic management. To these four questions we add three types of finality: the usual absolute terminal and horizontally immanent finalities plus the vertical finality of every growing and developing person among other persons in community. The need for a philosophical anthropology derives from a concomitant ethical requirement of what does and ought the manager, as person, undertake. What and how the person knows, wills, acts on provides the reality within which the manager, as person, operates. Along the way we will visit topics of transcendence, secularism, vulnerability, authentic personhood, and virtue. We conclude with a description, which is a dynamically evolving scheme of the meaning of a manager in the world, the social, and perhaps, the terminal goods of order. We move far from the _homo farber_ of a technology-led world whose thought conforms being. We have begun to extend our manager into the species _homo transcendens_ where being conforms thought and responsible action. We conclude with a sketch on the emerging role of spirituality in the workplace with connections to compassionate leadership, organizations as sites for healing and growth, and examples from the experience of humanistic organization who seem to have survived and thrived centuries of global operations. From an anthropology of gift we can identify several implications for managers. Humanistic management education would subsume the rational choice hegemony of economic modeling to a technological subset of tools, subject to the goals and nature of human persons. The scientism of thinking that psychology, sociology, political science, and economics would suitably describe, explain, and model human decisions would be replaced by an overarching framework leading to higher levels of knowledge, especially wisdom based educational experiences and content based on the natural integrity of human beings as learners. Since all technology follows, rather than leads, persons in an anthropology of gift, workplace practices would be founded in the structures immanent in persons and communities of persons. This would imply practices which transcend appraisal and assessment of performance to heights of contemplation and implementation of meaning in every task. Instead of beginning with a deficit of “what’s in it for me?” practices can begin with the surplus “how can I help you?” Proposed are practices which impound wisdom-based attributes of compassion, active listening, alterity, mercy, companionate and agapic love in decision analyses, interpretations of results, and incentives. The objective of the humanistically managed organization under the aegis of an anthropology of gift would be to minimize the maximum grief for the the most vulnerable. The objective would be applied as a policy across all authorities delegated by jurisdictions over organizations, and by boards, oversight groups, over decisions within organizations. This view from an anthropology of gift is consonant with emerging definitions of organizations as healing spaces where a balance of solidarity and subsidiarity guide decisions as opposed to simplistically applying supply and demand trade-offs. (shrink)

The “New Biology” that arose in the Eastern Block during Stalinist times was based on the idea of the heritability of acquired characteristics. In rejecting the paradigm of Mendelian chromosome genetics as well as science-based farming, the New Biology led to a deterioration of scientific life and the free exchange of ideas. In imposing Lysenko’s ideas onto zoology, the New Biology adopted the totalitarian language of Newspeak, which dominated public discourse in communist countries. Newspeak had several defining elements: a limited (...) dictionary, strong valuations, binary oppositions, the magical function of language, militarization, and ritualization of language. In this study, the concept of Newspeak is used to analyze primary sources in Polish zoology in the period between 1948 and 1956. Once the practice of Newspeak began to wane, so did the New Biology that had been founded on this specific ritualistic language. (shrink)

One of the levels of analysis used in Political Science studies is the individual. Analyzes at the individual level are carried out based on the personality of the political decision-makers, and in this direction, the individual characteristics of the decision-makers are the main factor taken into account in interpreting the quality of politics. This is also valid in the political books that constitute the main source of Islamic political thought. There is a leader-centered political narrative in the policy books written (...) for state administrators. In these works, the issues of which personal characteristics a leader should have and which behaviors should be avoided are especially discussed. A vision is built around these personal characteristics, from the ideal leader to the ideal politics. In this context, the ruler who is the chief executive of politics is not only an actor to whom advice is given but also the main element in politics. Therefore, examining the emphasis on the personal characteristics of the ruler in Islamic political thought becomes important in interpreting the leader-centered political narrative. In this context, in this study, it is aimed to examine the leader-centered political conception in Islamic political thought within the framework of Ebü’n-Necîb Şeyzerî’s Nehcü’s-Sülûk fî Siyaseti’l-Mülûk. The method of discourse analysis was used in the study and it was concluded that the personality of the leader, who is accepted as the founding element of the state and politics in Islamic political thought, directs politics and that the way to reach the ideal politics is to build the ideal leader. (shrink)

Resumen: Este trabajo presenta un estudio empírico sobre la direccionalidad en la traducción de los adverbios de grado chinos. Se ha adoptado una metodología cuantitativa basada en corpus y se ha realizado un estudio cualitativo para analizar las diferencias entre las traducciones directas e inversas de los adverbios de grado en un corpus paralelo construido para este estudio. El resultado muestra que los traductores hispanos prefieren utilizar el método de equivalencia, mientras que los chinos tienden a usar el método de (...) omisión; asimismo, las traducciones inversas presentan un debilitamiento de grado mucho más relevante que las directas. De acuerdo con los hallazgos, se ha establecido que la subjetividad del traductor y las características de los adverbios de grado chinos, como el límite difuso entre las categorías y la degeneración semántica, son los principales factores de divergencias entre las traducciones directas e inversas. Este trabajo completa los estudios sobre la direccionalidad traductológica y la traducción de los adverbios de grado. Abstract: This paper presents an empirical study of the directionality of the translation of Chinese adverbs of degree. We adopt the corpus-based quantitative methodology and the qualitative method to analyze the differences between direct and inverse translations of adverbs of degree in a self-built parallel corpus. The result shows that the Spanish translators prefer to use the equivalence method, while the Chinese tend to use the omission method. Moreover, the inverse translations present a much more prominent weakening of the degree than the direct ones. We find that the subjectivity of the translator and the characteristics of Chinese adverbs of degree, such as the blurred border between different degrees and semantic degeneracy, are the main factors of the discrepancy between direct and inverse translations. This work complements the studies on translation directionality and the translation of adverbs of degree. (shrink)

Bergin, Mary As an Australian it is a great honour to receive this award as Australian Humanist of the Year. It is often thought, mistakenly, that Humanism is somehow contrary to or opposed to religion, but of course it is not. It is simply a belief in rational and humane tolerance, and it holds that people should not be made miserable by cruel politicians or primitive moralists or superstitious beliefs. Humanists have succeeded to some considerable extent in the West in (...) removing ancient prejudices - for example against the LGBT community. We don't seem to have succeeded, to judge from the latest appointments in the NSW government, in refuting the strange idea that Christian politicians are less corrupt than atheists. (shrink)

I will argue here that for many of us the act of dressing our bodies is evidence of intentional expression before different audiences. It is important to appreciate that intentionality enables us to understand how and why we act the way we do. The novel contribution this paper makes to this examination is employing clothing as a means of revealing the characteristics of intentionality. In that, it is rare to identify one exemplar that successfully captures the relationships between the cognitive (...) and physical characteristics of its application. Nevertheless, this paper will not attempt to fully encompass the traditional approaches associated with this concept but instead employ both the early and later writings of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau‑Ponty and his claim that our lived bodies are an expressive space from which we act intentionally. In other words, that the manner by which we dress our bodies is likely to offer a significant means of revealing the character of intentionality in everyday life and by this, claim that clothing can communicate. Accordingly, this first‑person account closely examines both the cognitive and physical experience of a simple clothing example: ‘what to wear?’ and the experience of an everyday clothing purchase in a store and its subsequent impact when the item of clothing is worn for different audiences. The ensuing discussion systematically examines the significance of marrying Merleau‑Ponty’s writings with this everyday example through private and public audiences and in abstract and public spaces. (shrink)

I was deeply moved and inspired by Jason Dubroff’s article1 objecting to the source of the white coat distributed to the entering medical students at his school. The article stimulated me to ponder its implications and led to some thoughtful discussions with colleagues. Here was a busy medical student who was appropriately disturbed at what he regarded as a kind of ethical failure at the very ceremony, which was meant to exemplify and emphasise the values of humanism. However, unlike many (...) of us who notice evidence of ethical insensitivity, react with a sigh or a comment, and go on with our lives without significant alteration in our normal activities, Jason initiated an investigation of the issue, researched it in his own time, and even proposed remedial actions—a remarkable, unusual and impressive course of events. His article reinforced some of my personal prejudices. To those of my colleagues who nostalgically bewail the alleged decrease in idealism in today’s entering medical students, I can point to Jason as an example of the kind of ethical sensitivity, …. (shrink)

Grounded theory, a research method born out of the social sciences field, offers a flexible technique that allows simultaneous data collection and processing. Researchers using this method immerse themselves in an area of study, focusing their observations on the data and taking into consideration not only their own interpretations, but also those of the other subjects involved, in order to strengthen their understanding of the social phenomena under examination. This text briefly describes the concept of grounded theory and uses concrete (...) examples to illustrate how data are analysed from the standpoint of the stereotype as an object of study. La teoría fundamentada, nacida al interior de las ciencias sociales, es un método de investigación que posee una técnica flexible y que realiza simultáneamente la recolección y el procesamiento de los datos. En este método, el investigador se encuentra inmerso en el campo de estudio y sus observaciones se abocan al dato, considerando tanto su interpretación como la de los otros sujetos implicados, con la finalidad de fortalecer la comprensión del fenómeno social investigado. En este texto se describe brevemente la teoría fundamentada y cómo se analizan los datos mediante ejemplos concretos, que se presentan a partir del estereotipo como objeto de estudio. (shrink)

One of the most rooted topics in Arabic poetry is the dirge. It shows that during the Jāhiliyya period, people lamented the dead at the graves and remembered their beautiful qualities. A similar situation continued in terms of content in the dirges that were said in the following periods. However, with the change of social, political and cultural conditions in time, there have been partial changes in the writing styles and purposes of the dirges. For example, the effects of (...) political and sectarian factors were felt more in the process that started with the Umayyad period and continued in the following centuries. On the other hand, it has been observed that poets wrote dirges not only for the people they love but also for themselves, the animals they owned and the cities they lived in. In Arabic literature, dirges written for cities became famous and widespread, especially during the Andalusian period. However, considering that the poets of the Jahiliyya period lament the lands abandoned by the beloved, especially in the first part of the ode, it can be said that the tradition of writing elegies for cities dates back to much earlier times. On the other hand, the destruction of cities during the Abbasid period due to many wars, especially the Mongol invasion, caused many poets to recite dirges for these destroyed cities. One of the cities damaged during this period is Baghdad, one of the most important cities of Islamic culture and civilization. As it is known, Baghdad was occupied by the Mongols in 1258. As a result of this occupation, also known as the Baghdad disaster, many of the material and spiritual wealth of the city were destroyed. For this reason, the event had great repercussions in Arabic poetry, and many poets who could not remain unresponsive to what happened elegized for Baghdad. One of these poets is Shamsaddīn al-Kūfī (d. 675/1256), whose al-Kasīda al-Nūniya is the subject of our study. Shamsaddīn al-Kūfī, who was born in 623/1226 in Kufa, is one of the leading literary scholars and poets of his period. Due to the fact that the Baghdad disaster affected his poems to a great extent, he was given the title of Poet of Baghdad Disaster. When his poems are examined in general, it can be said that the dirges he sang for family members, friends, children of his friends and the city of Baghdad, which was destroyed by the Mongolian invasion, are at the forefront. The poet, who uses verbal arts such as tibāq and rad al ajuz alā al sadr intensively, places more importance on the meaning dimension of the issue in his dirges and uses arts related to meaning skillfully. al-Kasīda al-Nūniya, written by Shamsaddīn al-Kūfī in the Kamil bahr for Baghdad, is composed of 27 couplets. The theme of complaint about separation is addressed in the introduction part of the kasīda. Then, the main subject of the kasīda was put forward with the themes of the effects of the Mongolian occupation in Baghdad, the poet's feelings about this occupation, and the longing for the beautiful days in Baghdad. In the conclusion part, by returning to the theme of complaint about separation, a different internal structure from the contents of traditional Arabic poetry is displayed. This organization, while in keeping with the spirit of the type of city dirge that reflects the disaster experienced in a city, also provides fluency. While words that are easy to pronounce and suitable for morphology rules are preferred in general, attention has been paid to the rules of eloquence. On the other hand, the poet mostly preferred informative sentences in which he conveyed the Baghdad disaster to the reader with all its truth. However, in the sections where he felt the need to express his emotional intensity in a more striking way, he enriched his expression with sentence types such as wonder, interrogation, oath and interjection. Shamsaddīn al-Kūfī frequently used jinās in his poems. In addition, the art of tibāk, which is one of the arts related to meaning, is one of the badī (creative) arts in its couplets. As a result, it was seen that the Mongol invasion had a considerable effect on Arab poetry within the framework of this city dirge, which Shamsaddīn al-Kūfī had recited, and that historical facts were transferred to the next periods with a poignant style in these poems. (shrink)

The notion of subjectivity with which the argument will be carried out may be defined as our ability to reflect critically, to think creatively and to act resolutely in our relation to society and nature. Some essential marks of subjectivity are illustrated through an example taken from the rescue operation conducted in the fall of 2010 for the miners trapped deep underground at the San Jose mine site in Chile for sixty-nine days. With the science and technology applied in (...) constructing the drilling rigs and making the capsule which lifted the trapped miners to freedom, ingenuity, the resilient sense of mission and perseverance of the rescue personnel, and the purposeful solidarity among the trapped miners are among the decisive factors contributing to the successful accomplishment of the rescue undertaking. At this critical juncture of the current global economic downturn, it is consequential for us to bring ourselves to reflect upon the seriousness of the predicament which all humanity is in. It is indeed time for intellectuals to rise up and share responsibility in keeping our world sustainable by setting purposeful and resolute subjectivity before themselves and coming forward to tenaciously find ways in which to renew ourselves as well as to achieving the continuing betterment of humanity. (shrink)

_In the light of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, this paper looks into some of the problems of contemporary man as an individual, a member of society, a citizen of his country, a component of this world, and of nature itself. Concepts like Science; Nature,;Matter; Mental Being; Mana-purusa; Prana-purusa; Citta-purusa; Nation-ego and Nation-soul; True and False Subjectivism; World-state and World-union; Religion of Humanism are the focus of this paper. Nature: Beneath the diversity and uniqueness of the different elements in Nature there is (...) an essential unity that not only allows for this diversity but even supports it. Nature is both a benefactor and a force: a benefactor, because it acts to carry out the evolution of mankind; a force, because it also supplies the necessary energy and momentum to achieve it. Natural calamities: If mankind can quieten the tsunamis and cyclones and droughts and earthquakes that rage within, and behave with care and compassion towards Nature, not exploiting, denuding, or denigrating it, there is a strong possibility that Nature too will behave with equal care and compassion towards man and spare him the natural calamities than rend him asunder. Science: The limitation of science become obvious, according to Sri Aurobindo, when we realize that it has mastered knowledge of processes and helped in the creation of machinery but is ignorant of the foundations of being and, therefore, cannot perfect our nature or our life. Science and philosophy: The insights of philosophy could become heuristic and algorithmic models for scientific experimentation. Matter: An interesting aspect of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is his acceptance of the reality of matter even while highlighting its inadequacies; the ultimate goal, according to him, is the divination of matter itself. Purusa: If the mana-purusa (mental being) were to log on to the genuine citta-purusa (psychic formation), without necessarily logging off from the prana-purusa (frontal formation), it may help quieten the turbulences within, which may be a prelude to the quietening of the disturbances without, whether it be physical maladies, cravings (for food, fame, fortune, etc.), destructive competitiveness; or wars, terrorism, ethnic conflicts, communal riots, and the other such social maladies that afflict mankind today. Nation-ego (false subjectivism) and Nation-soul (true subjectivism): Sri Aurobindo considers Nation-ego an example of false subjectivism, in which national identity and pride are stressed to prove one's superiority and suppress or exploit the rest. The Nation-soul, as an example of true subjectivism, attempts to capture one's traditional heritage and values in its pristine form, not as a reaction to hurts and angers or as compensation for real or imagined injuries or indignities of the past. World-state (false subjectivism) and World-union (true subjectivism): Similarly, a World-state founded upon the principle of centralization and uniformity, a mechanical and formal unity, is an example of false subjectivism, while a World-union founded upon the principle of liberty and variation in a free and intelligent unity is an example of true subjectivism Human actualization: Even if two human beings are similar, in so far as they are human beings, there is so much diversity between them. Part of the movement towards human self-actualization lies in the fact that this diversity should not be forcibly curbed, as also the realization that beneath all that appears disparate there is an essential unity. Also, man is not the end product of evolution but an intermediate stage between the animal and the divine. Moreover, he is endowed with consciousness that enables him to cooperate with the forces of evolution and speed up and telescope the next stage of evolution._. (shrink)

Many recent developments in artificial intelligence research are relevant for traditional issues in the philosophy of science. One of the developments in AI research we want to focus on in this article is diagnostic reasoning, which we consider to be of interest for the theory of explanation in general and for an understanding of explanatory arguments in economic science in particular. Usually, explanation is primarily discussed in terms of deductive inferences in classical logic. However, in recent AI research it is (...) observed that a diagnostic explanation is actually quite different from deductive reasoning. In diagnostic reasoning the emphasis is on restoring consistency rather than on deduction. Intuitively speaking, the problem diagnostic reasoning is concerned with is the following. Consider a description of a system in which the normal behavior of the system is characterized and an observation that conflicts with this normal behavior. The diagnostic problem is to determine which of the components of the system can, when assumed to be functioning abnormally, account for the conflicting observation. A diagnosis is a set of allegedly malfunctioning components that can be used to restore the consistency of the system description and the observation. In this article, this kind of reasoning is formalized and we show its importance for the theory of explanation. We will show how the diagnosis nondeductively explains the discrepancy between the observed and the correct system behavior. The article also shows the relevance of the subject for real scientific arguments by showing that examples of diagnostic reasoning can be found in Friedman's Theory of the Consumption Function. Moreover, it places the philosophical implications of diagnostic reasoning in the context of Mill's aprioristic methodology. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that the Ca2+/calmodulin-sensitive adenylyl cyclase may play a key role in neural plasticity and learning in Aplysia, Drosophila, and mammals. This dually-regulated enzyme has been proposed as a possible site of stimulus convergence during associative learning. This commentary discusses the evidence that is required to demonstrate that a protein in a second messenger cascade actually functions as a molecular site of associative integration. It also addresses the issue of how a dually-regulated protein could contribute to the temporal pairing (...) requirements of classical conditioning: that relationship between stimuli display both temporal contiguity and predictability. (shrink)

The paper reports on the state of Polish and Belarusian scientists’ research on eighteenth century reconstruction and pictorial decorations of the Corpus Christ Church in Nieśwież. On the basis of the inquiry conducted based on Belarusian, Polish and American archives, the author forms a new hypothesis that the reconstruction and church decoration was done by a North Italian architect, Maurizio Pedetti. This hypothesis reveals the network of European artistic and ideological connections, part of which became Nieśwież through the artistic patronage (...) of the Radziwiłł family. (shrink)

After the publication of Sidereus Nuncius, in the controversy with Ch. Scheiner, Galileo developed several arguments on behalf of the hypothesis that sunspots are contiguous to the surface of the Sun, and presented them in his Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti. One of them, named by Galileo a Practical Method, advocates very clearly the correctness of the hypothesis. In the paper the method in question is briefly described. It is argued that the Practical Method is (...) not a thought experiment, but rather a mental model proposed precisely in order to solve the problem of sunspots’ location. (shrink)

‘Practice theory’—a theory program that connects the goal of offering non-rationalist explanations to a strong focus on everyday routine activities, and builds on the work of Bourdieu but tries to gain a less narrow perspective—is being used more and more widely in the social sciences. Its advocates often argue that, since practice theory is a heuristic for doing empirical work, discussing it without addressing this empirical work cannot do justice to it. Therefore, this article analyses Reckwitz’s recently translated book on (...) The Society of Singularities, which its author presents as an example of the advantages of (one dominant version of) practice theory. As will be shown, the book demonstrates that this version of practice theory does not fulfil its promises. Looking at its difficulties is instructive, however, because it helps see more clearly how the goal of an integrative ‘theory of practice’ could be achieved. (shrink)

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to concepts of the self associated with the development of humanism in England, and to strategies for both inclusion and exclusion in structuring the early modern nation state. It addresses writings about rhetoric and behavior from 1495–1660, beginning with Erasmus’ work on sermo or the conversational rhetoric between friends, which considers the reader as an ‘absent audience’, and following the transference of this stance to a politics whose broadening democratic constituency needed a legitimate structure (...) for governance-at-a-distance. Unusually, the book brings together the impact on behavior of these new concepts about rhetoric, with the growth of the publishing industry, and the emergence of capitalism and of modern medicine. It explores the effects on the formation of the ‘subject’ and political legitimation of the early liberal nation state. It also lays new ground for scholarship concerned with what is left out of both selfhood and politics by that state, studying examples of a parallel development of the ‘self’ defined by friendship not only from educated male writers, but also from women writers and writers concerned with socially ‘middling’ and laboring people and the poor. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Techniques of the Self:Nourishing Life as Art of LivingLi Manhua (bio)Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life. By Eric S. Nelson. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.This essay proposes an account of the techniques of the self in early Daoism in light of Eric S. Nelson's Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life (Routledge, 2021). It argues that the techniques of the self involved in nourishing life (yangsheng 養生) are indispensable (...) to the creation of the interdependent human-nature rapport that Nelson considers. Such interdependence does not require a moralistic stance that negates the self or forsakes individual desires in the cause of the environment—as in some of the existing Western ecological discourse—but a new form of self-relation involving the practice of a set of techniques of the self that relates the human to the non-human. The present contribution begins by arguing that the practice of nourishing life entails a series of bodily and spiritual techniques (shu 術) of the self, with the example of Cook Ding. This is followed by my exposition of different categories of such techniques, and why the techniques of nourishing the spirit (shen 神) are prioritized over those of the preservation of the bodily form (xing 形). Finally, I extend my discussion on the specific techniques of nourishing the spirit with regard to his chapter "Emptying Ecology," where Nelson argues that undoing fixations of the self and being responsive (ying 應) to things are attainable through deconstructive, skeptical, and paradoxical communicative strategies (p. 80).To start with, Nelson regards nourishing life as a way of living and speaking that goes beyond the binary opposition or a hierarchical relation between the human and other forms of life in some Western ecological philosophies:In the current crisis conditions, it appears that humans need every motivating ecology available whether it be light or dark green, anthro- or bio-centric, shallow or deep. All of these contending discourses are equalized in a Daoist ecology of shifting perspectives and ways of speaking. A benefit of dao-centric models—that as inflections of the "way" encompass and extend beyond notions of "bios" (specific life) and "zōe" (life in general)—is that they contest the binary oppositions and stratified hierarchies that have dominated recent Western environmental discourses: anthropocentrism/biocentrism, and humanism/posthumanism [End Page 762] (although the latter finds biocentrism still too anthropocentric in positing the very distinction between them).(p. 31, my emphasis)In other words, a non-hierarchical and non-opposing rapport between the human and the non-human lies in a practice of changing perspectives and, more concretely and importantly, adjusting communicative ways. Such a way of perceiving and speaking beyond boundaries between the individual and the general forms of life (sheng 生) is epitomized by the practice of nourishing life of Cook Ding in the third chapter of the Zhuangzi 庄子, titled "The Master of Nourishing Life" (Yangsheng zhu 養生主). When Ding—Lord Wenhui's chef—cuts up an ox, he avoids violent and forced slaughter, slitting through the tender parts of the animal without touching any bone. As such, by concentrating only on the intestines of the ox, his movement is so agile that the knife produces a musical rhythm.More precisely, Nelson regards the example of Ding as "a cultivated and practiced process in which nature can come to be itself" (p. 36). In the context of the Zhuangzi, nature (tian 天) as an extension of the Dao goes beyond the "one-and-many" anthropocentric paradigm wherein humans have exclusive knowledge of the One, namely the unifying principle of reality (Chai 2018, p. 265). In this sense, specific life forms, bios, are undifferentiated from the wholeness of the One in the generic life, zōe. In other words, as the root of all life lies in Dao in terms of the onto-cosmological attunement of nothingness (wuwei 無為), our bodies (shen 身) mirror Heaven or Nature (tian 天) and the Earth (di 地) in the way they attune to the flow of vital energetic dynamics, responding to the myriad things and Heaven and Earth in an organic totality. This is manifest in Ding, as he nourishes life by turning his daily activity into a practice of encountering non-human life forms... (shrink)

In this commentary, we discuss an important pattern of results in the literature on the neural basis of expertise: decrease of cerebral activation at the beginning of acquisition of expertise and functional cerebral reorganization as a consequence of years of practice. We show how these two results can be integrated with the neural reuse framework.

Neoliberalism, health and illness are all vast topics that range from global to local, personal to political. Critical realism offers valuable concepts, which help to extend and deepen analysis of...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond EngelClinical Pragmatism as the Foundation of Psychiatric PracticeDavid H. Brendel (bio)Keywordsbiopsychosocial model, pluralism, pragmatism, psychiatryFor many years now, there has been growing recognition of the powerful role of pragmatic reasoning in numerous disciplines, including bioethics, medicine, law, political science, and philosophy (Dickstein 1998; Rosenthal, Hausman, and Anderson 1999). But until recently, philosophical pragmatism was neglected by scholars exploring the clinical challenges and theoretical underpinnings of psychiatry. In his (...) noteworthy article The Biopsychosocial Model and Philosophic Pragmatism: Is George Engel a Pragmatist?, Bradley Lewis offers a significant contribution to the small but gradually increasing literature in this area. Lewis appropriately presents Engel as a major figure in twentieth-century American medicine and psychiatry, a critic and a visionary who dared to question the dominant paradigm of biomedical reductionism (Engel 1977)—a paradigm that led to important scientific advances, but also restricted the physician’s understanding of the patient as a complex individual with an inner world and interpersonal relationships. Lewis argues that medicine and psychiatry a generation after Engel’s seminal 1977 paper can be revitalized by reinterpreting Engel in the intellectual tradition of classical American pragmatism and neo-pragmatism. Placing Engel in the pragmatic tradition, Lewis suggests, could enhance the biopsychosocial model and have substantial benefits for both individual patients and society as a whole.There is no disputing Lewis’s argument that a pragmatic philosophy of medicine and psychiatry is a noble goal. In fact, in my book Healing Psychiatry: Bridging the Science/Humanism Divide (Brendel 2006), I present philosophical pragmatism as the most compelling theoretical approach to clinical psychiatry in the twenty-first century—the approach that is most likely to empower the clinician and the patient to collaboratively develop a treatment plan that heeds the multidimensional complexity of the patient’s life, recognizes the confusion and uncertainty that grows out of this complexity, and aims for a favorable therapeutic outcome. Drawing on work of the classical American pragmatists and contemporary pragmatic bioethicists, I identify four dimensions of philosophical pragmatism that provide a sound foundation for clinical work, which I call the “four ps”: (1) diagnostic formulations and treatment plans in psychiatry are practical insofar as they focus on results rather than a commitment to any particular theory; (2) they are pluralistic [End Page 311] insofar as they incorporate explanatory concepts that span the biopsychosocial spectrum; (3) they are participatory and collaborative, not imposed authoritatively by the clinician; and (4) they are provisional, open-ended, and malleable to newly acquired information and evolution of the patient’s condition.Lewis casts Engel as a philosophical pragmatist who battled the Goliath of biomedical reductionism that had come to dominate American medicine and psychiatry in the latter half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, however, regardless of how elegantly Lewis reinterprets Engel, he cannot render him a full-blown pragmatist for the medicine and psychiatry of the twenty-first century. Lewis provides quotations to suggest that Engel valued a results-oriented clinical sensibility, for example “the value of a scientific model is measured not by whether it is right or wrong but by how useful it is” (Engel 1980). But Engel was not fully committed to clinical outcome as the supreme judge of theory in medicine and psychiatry. Lewis notes that Engel understood the biopsychosocial model as less “a matter of compassion and humanity” and more a matter of “rigorous application of the principles and practices of science”; he was a man of his time who could not fully escape the scientism of the day. Working within this scientistic world, he distinguished himself by reintroducing psychological, sociological, and humanistic concepts into clinical medicine, which had become obsessed with the power and robustness of the natural sciences but had neglected the suffering human subject and the social context of illness. Engel undoubtedly hoped the biopsychosocial model would lead to better clinical results but, unlike the classical American pragmatists and contemporary pragmatic bioethicists, he did not make a systematic case for privileging clinical outcome above strict adherence to scientific theory.In fact, Engel’s biopsychosocial model runs the risk of becoming a reified end in itself; those who unquestioningly espouse its basic tenets are in danger of... (shrink)

The concern of this paper is to argue against Maduabuchi Dukor’s conception of African philosophical ideas of man, universe and God as“theistic humanism”. Dukor’s submission is an anti-thesis of the claims by many pioneer scholars in African philosophy who claimed that if Africans do not live in a religious universe perhaps one can affirm that their universe is theistic. But indeed the Africans’ perceptions and attitude to life in their various manifestations reveal an idealistic metaphysical orientation without an attenuation of (...) humanistic elements. It is argued in this paper that Dukor’s philosophical idea of reality in the African context though contributes to knowledge, it is in sharp contrast to African metaphysical theories such as Placide Temple’s theory of vital forces, Olubi Sodipo’s theory of mystical causality, Dagogo Idoniboye’s theory of spiritism among others. Even Sophie Oluwole, who argues that the Yoruba idea of morality is humanistic, still concludes that in moral issues the gods act as agent of sanction. In situating the African idea of reality in context, the Yoruba example is used in this paper with a view to establishing, contrary to Dukor’s“theistic humanism”; that reality among the Yoruba is better construed as“humanistic theism”. (shrink)