The publication of the critical edition of Reason in Science marks a moment of significant progress in The Works of George Santayana project of The MIT Press, a project nearing its thirtieth year. The book series from which RS is derived, The Life of Reason, is the most important philosophic work of Santayana's early career, and indeed is of essential importance for anyone interested in early twentieth-century American philosophy. As James Gouinlock puts it in his introduction, LR "proved to be (...) a major stimulus to the revitalization of philosophy in America, and its value continues today".RS is the final book of the five-part LR. The four volumes preceding RS, thematically covering "reason in"... (shrink)

Santayana's Life of Reason, published in five books from 1905 to 1906, ranks as one of the greatest works in modern philosophical naturalism. Acknowledging the natural material bases of human life, Santayana traces the development of the human capacity for appreciating and cultivating the ideal. It is a capacity he exhibits as he articulates a continuity running through animal impulse, practical intelligence, and ideal harmony in reason, society, art, religion, and science. The work is an exquisitely rendered vision of human (...) life lived sanely. In this first book of the work, Santayana provides an account of how the human animal develops instinct, passion, and chaotic experience into rationality and ideal life. Inspired by Aristotle's De Anima, Darwin's evolutionary theory, and William James's The Principles of Psychology, Santayana contends that the requirements of action in a hazardous and uncertain environment are the sources of the development of mind. More specifically, instinct and imagination are crucial to the emergence of reason from chaos. Separating himself from the typical thought of the time by his recognition of the imagination, Santayana in this volume offers extensive critiques of various philosophies of mind, including those of Kant and the British empiricists. This Critical Edition, volume VII of The Works of George Santayana, includes a chronology, notes, bibliography, textual commentary, lists of variants, and other tools useful to Santayana scholars. The other four books of the volume include Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, and Reason in Science. (shrink)

Santayana argues that instinct and imagination are crucial to the emergence of reason from chaos. Santayana's Life of Reason, published in five books from 1905 to 1906, ranks as one of the greatest works in modern philosophical naturalism. Acknowledging the natural material bases of human life, Santayana traces the development of the human capacity for appreciating and cultivating the ideal. It is a capacity he exhibits as he articulates a continuity running through animal impulse, practical intelligence, and ideal harmony in (...) reason, society, art, religion, and science. The work is an exquisitely rendered vision of human life lived sanely. In this first book of the work, Santayana provides an account of how the human animal develops instinct, passion, and chaotic experience into rationality and ideal life. Inspired by Aristotle's De Anima, Darwin's evolutionary theory, and William James's The Principles of Psychology, Santayana contends that the requirements of action in a hazardous and uncertain environment are the sources of the development of mind. More specifically, instinct and imagination are crucial to the emergence of reason from chaos. Separating himself from the typical thought of the time by his recognition of the imagination, Santayana in this volume offers extensive critiques of various philosophies of mind, including those of Kant and the British empiricists. This Critical Edition, volume VII of The Works of George Santayana, includes a chronology, notes, bibliography, textual commentary, lists of variants, and other tools useful to Santayana scholars. The other four books of the volume include Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, and Reason in Science. (shrink)

Santayana's Life of Reason, published in five books from 1905 to 1906, ranks as one of the greatest works in modern philosophical naturalism. Acknowledging the natural material bases of human life, Santayana traces the development of the human capacity for appreciating and cultivating the ideal. It is a capacity he exhibits as he articulates a continuity running through animal impulse, practical intelligence, and ideal harmony in reason, society, art, religion, and science. The work is an exquisitely rendered vision of human (...) life lived sanely. In this second book, Santayana analyzes several distinctive forms of human association, from political and economic orders to forms of friendship, to determine what possibilities they provide for the life of reason. He considers, among other topics, love and the affinity for the ideal, the family, aristocracy and democracy, the constituents of genuinely free friendship, patriotism, and the ideal society of kindred spirits. This Critical Edition, volume VII of The Works of George Santayana, includes a chronology, notes, bibliography, textual commentary, lists of variants, and other tools useful to Santayana scholars. The other four books of the volume include Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, and Reason in Science. (shrink)

Sexual eukaryotic organisms are characterized by an alternation between haploid and diploid phases. In vascular plants and animals, somatic growth and development occur primarily in the diploid phase, with the haploid phase reduced to the gametic cells. In many other eukaryotes, however, growth and development occur in both phases, with substantial variability among organisms in the length of each phase of the life cycle. A number of theoretical models and experimental studies have shed light on factors that may influence life (...) cycle evolution, yet we remain far from a complete understanding of the diversity of life cycles observed in nature. In this paper we review the current state of knowledge in this field, and touch upon the many questions that remain unanswered. BioEssays 20:453–462, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The second of five books of one of the greatest works in modern philosophical naturalism.

So-called “social egg freezing” allows a woman to retain the possibility of trying to have a child with her own oocytes later in life, even after having become infertile in the strict sense of the word.There is a debate about whether it is morally permissible at all, the extent to which it should be permitted legally or even supported, and whether it is ethically desirable. This paper contributes some thoughts to the issue of ethical desirability. More precisely it deals with (...) the question of whether there is any valuable argument to be made on the basis of the idea of life phases and normative expectations related to them. So the question is: Is there a right time in life to have a child, and does this speak against or in favor of social freezing? This question is answered in three steps. First, I will give an overview of ethical arguments that are mostly put forward in favor or against the use of social egg freezing and show that and why the question of life phases should be taken into account. Second, I will sketch what I understand by phases of life, more precisely, what I understand by normatively conceptualized life stages, that are to be distinguished from other kinds of life phases, and how they relate to a good life. Third, I will present two arguments that rely on the idea of life stages and speak against social egg freezing. However, I will criticize them and instead show that from the perspective of life stages nothing speaks against using the technique within certain limits. (shrink)

This paper presents the concept of the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as an enhancement, or rather as a further development of Alfred Schutz’s general thesis of the reciprocity of perspectives. It claims that the according figure of thought is a constitutive part of acts of understanding in everyday life where, in order to understand each other, individuals of different age-groups have to overcome the difference of perspectives that are attached to their particular ages. This is accomplished (...) by a specific assumption that is also applied in the case of intrasubjective, autobiographical understanding. By discussing its sociological significance as well as its philosophical background, this paper introduces the idealization of the interchangeability of phases of life as a fundamental and universal figure of understanding. (shrink)

Excerpt from Some Phases in the Development of the Subjective Point of View During the Post-Aristotelian Period, Vol. 3 1. The Difference In Philosophic Standpoint Between Aristotle And St. Augustine In St. Augustine's philosophy the starting-point is the same as in the beginning of modern thought, namely, the certainty of inner experience. Not even the Skeptic, says St. Augustine, can doubt sensation as such; moreover, this very experience reveals not only the content that had formed the basis of relativistic or (...) positivistic interpretations, but also the conscious self, the perceiving subject. For Aristotle and his contemporaries, perception was essentially a cognitive process, apprehending the forms of sensible objects without the matter. Such apprehension of external objects was regarded as direct, the awareness as awareness of the objectively real character of things. A mind as such perceiving was foreign to their modes of thinking; the person, composite of body and soul, thinks and knows, was their view. There is ample evidence that self-consciousness was recognized by Plato in his theories of sensation; and that Aristotle made a psychological analysis of it as a mental phenomenon, though he utterly disregarded it in his metaphysics and epistemology. In the earlier period, therefore, mind was studied in its manifestations in nature and society; with the close of ancient speculation, the investigation was based predominantly on introspection and the analysis of mental operations of the individual thinker. It is accordingly an interesting inquiry how this change of viewpoint was effected and what were the consequent alterations in scientific method. Though such a development cannot be treated in isolation from the social life, the scope of this paper will allow only most general and cursory references to the social, political, and religious influences affecting the philosophic thought of the post-Aristotelian period. 2. Indications Of Interest In Inner Experience During The Pre-Aristotelian Period The Ionian philosophers viewed physical reality as a concrete whole; there was no antagonism between human nature and universal nature in either theory or practice. Heraclitus revolted from the conception of the world established by tradition and the theories of teachers, over against which he set up the claims of reason. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Feeling old: being in a phase of transition in later life The aim of the study was to illuminate very old persons’ experiences of feeling old in order to get a nuanced understanding of the ageing process in later life. Fifteen persons 85–96 years of age, living in their own homes, were interviewed in‐depth. Data were analysed utilising a phenomenological‐hermeneutic approach. Eight persons reported that they felt old. The experience of feeling old entailed four characteristics: being able to date the (...) beginning of feeling old, fear of helplessness and of being unable to manage one’s life situation, not recognising one’s former self, and feeling different from others. These characteristics corresponded to the main properties of a transition process. The comprehensive understanding was that the very old persons who also felt old were in a phase of transition. The distinguishing qualities of those that felt old were also found to be in line with the dystonic dominance in the ninth stage designated by Joan Erikson of the previously described life cycle. Knowledge about transition processes and sensitivity to very old people’s experiences of feeling old are of great importance to nursing in order to provide adequate health care services and prevent unhealthy transitions. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, (...) describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)

Some theories of personal identity allow some variation in what it takes for a person to survive from context to context; and sometimes this is determined by the desires of person-stages or the practices of communities.This leads to problems for decision making in contexts where what is chosen will affect personal identity.‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’ solves such problems by allowing that there can be a plurality of persons constituted by a sequence of person stages. This illuminates difficult decision making problems when (...) persons have to choose between different life-altering choices. (shrink)

One of the concepts which deserves particular attention by philosophers of the 21th century is that of life and, more specifically, that of human life. Because life on Earth is limited, mankind has historically relied on religion for its promise of salvation and an afterlife.Yet, recently, people have been relying on alternative institutions, such as the state or market, for answers to their questions about the limited nature of human life. With the rise of dependence on such instituions comes the (...) rise of new questions: are the state and market responsible for defining the meaning of life and for providing adequate answers to the suffering and death that afflict humankind? Can the state make use of technology and scientific knowledge in order to regulate population according to its objectives? Is there any ethical limit to the experimentation with the different phases of human life? Is it possible to preserve a sacral sphere for human life? This book provides extensive reflection and possible solutions to these perplexities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article examines the phenomenon known as the quarter-life crisis. The aim was to explore how young people in the Czech Republic practising Buddhism experience this crisis and how Buddhism influences the way they cope. Qualitative research was used to gain insight into how respondents experience this life phase and whether they perceive the world of too many opportunities as a challenge or a problem. The relationship with consumer culture and material consumption was discussed along with the practice of (...) Buddhism and the way Buddhism-based values play a role in influencing respondents’ lives. Respondents showed they are missing a set of principles and values to ease their orientation in the world and their decision-making process. They found in Buddhism a structure that helps them form a delimitation against consumer and non-sustainable production. As a result of adhering to Buddhism and engaging in some practices based on Buddhism, they reported more control in self-directing together with a growth in self-confidence during the decision-making process. At the same time, they overcame feelings of exclusion, observed as one of the manifestations of a young age crisis. They reported that establishing contacts with like-minded young people, whether in meditation, sports centres or discussion forums on social networking sites, gave them a sense of belonging to a group. (shrink)

In her Introduction, Tymieniecka states the core theme of the present book sharply: Is culture an excess of nature's prodigious expansiveness - an excess which might turn out to be dangerous for nature itself if it goes too far - or is culture a 'natural', congenial prolongation of nature-life? If the latter, then culture is assimilated into nature and thus would lose its claim to autonomy: its criteria would be superseded by those of nature alone. Of course, nature and culture (...) may both still be seen as being absorbed by the inner powers of specifically human inwardness, on which view, human being, caught in its own transcendence, becomes separated radically in kind from the rest of existence and may not touch even the shadow of reality except through its own prism. Excess, therefore, or prolongation? And on what terms? The relationship between culture and nature in its technical phase demands a new elucidation. Here this is pursued by excavating the root significance of the 'multiple rationalities' of life. In contrast to Husserl, who differentiated living types according to their degree of participation in the world, the phenomenology of life disentangles living types from within the ontopoietic web of life itself. The human creative act reveals itself as the Great Divide of the Logos of Life - a divide that does not separate but harmonizes, thus dispelling both naturalistic and spiritualistic reductionism. (shrink)

In this bold, provocative account, the author argues that the phenomena of life and mind elude purely materialistic explanations. Living matter occupies a unique phase of existence which results from the complex transformation of its biochemical synergies. Analogous phase changes account for mind and self-reflexive consciousness. A central role in the living state is played by intelligence, which has not been recognised as a non-negotiable precondition of organic existence. Yet the concept of evolutionary adaptivity relies tacitly on it. Thus the (...) book amounts to a serious challenge to the overly theoretical paradigmata of the last half-century with their timorous evasion of biological fundamentals. However, although the work relies on up-to-date research of the life sciences, it is a primarily philosophical enquiry, dealing head on with many unsolved problems of life and mind, and culminating in a detailed "ontological proof" of the mind system. (shrink)

This article focuses on the significance of acoustical phenomena in the development of the subjectivity of the infant. An attribute of that development, beginning with the breakdown of psychological symbiosis for the infant, is the loss implicit in the eventual participation of the subject in a symbolic order and the consequent acquisition of language. The essay examines how such loss can contribute to the constitution of the subject and the ego of the subject. Two aspects of language, metaphor and metonymy, (...) are examined in regard to their fundamental relationship to subjectivity. The character Echo, from the myth of Narcissus and Echo, is the namesake for a phase of development, the Echo Phase, which is postulated to begin after the third month of life. During this phase, to some extent the development of the subject depends upon intersubjectivity and concomitant auditory and linguistic phenomena. It is an implicit purpose of this essay to understand the advent of the ego as the expression of a phenomenological structure, dependent upon language and intersubjectivity, that mediates between subject and world. ... By chance Narcissus lost track of his companions, started calling "Is anybody here?" and "Here!" said Echo. He looked around in wonderment, called louder "Come to me!" "Come to me!" came back the answer. He looked behind him, and saw no one coming; "Why do you run from me?" and heard his question Repeated in the woods. "Let us get together!" There was nothing Echo would ever say more gladly, "Let us get together!" And to help her words, Out of the woods she came, with arms all ready To fling around his neck. But he retreated: "Keep your hands off," he cried, "and do not touch me! I would die before I give you a chance at me." "I give you a chance at me," and that was all She ever said thereafter, spurned and hiding, Ashamed, in the leafy forests, in lonely caverns. She frets and pines, becomes all gaunt and haggard, Her body dries and shrivels till voice only And bones remain, and then she is voice only For the bones are turned to stone. She hides in woods And no one sees her now along the mountains, But all may hear her, for her voice is living. Ovid, Metamorphoses. (shrink)

Background Gerontechnologies are increasingly used in the care for older people. Many studies on their acceptability and ethical implications are conducted, but mainly from the perspective of principlism. This narrows our ethical gaze on the implications the use of these technologies have. Research question How do participants speak about the impact that gerontechnologies have on the different phases of care, and care as a process? What are the moral implications from an ethic of care perspective? Research design Secondary analysis of (...) semi-structure interviews, whose segments on specific technologies were analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Participants and research context Sixty-seven Swiss stakeholders involved in the use of gerontechnologies, including professional caregivers, informal caregivers, and older persons themselves. Ethical considerations The research study was evaluated by the Ethics Commission of Northwest and Central Switzerland (EKNZ). All participants received an information document before the interview date detailing the purpose, procedure, and anonymization measures. After explaining the study during the agreed upon interview time and upon receiving their written informed consent, the interview process began. Findings/results Four themes are identified: Identifying care needs, Taking responsibility, Hands-on work, Responding to care. As part of these themes, many codes highlighting the ambivalent impact of gerontechnologies are created, ranging from ‘Expanded capacity for…identifying care needs’ to ‘Create new & (un)necessary…hands-on work’. The moral implications of these results from the care ethics perspective are discussed, through the ethical elements of: attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. Conclusions The moral implications of gerontechnologies on care phases from the care ethics perspective open up several questions on whether they actually help give care a central role in social life and provide more competent care. (shrink)

Much of the sustained attention on pandemic preparedness has focused on the ethical justification for plans for the “crisis” phase of a surge when, despite augmentation efforts, the demand for life...

A simply written and beautifully illustrated collection of meditations, this book explores each year and phase of life. Hans Korteweg, a well-respected Jungian scholar, offers simple yet profound insights into the qualities, challenges, and possibilities each cycle of life brings to one's lifelong journey toward happiness and fulfillment. Full-color illustrations.

Excerpt from The Problem of Life I must here relate that I had many obstacles to contend with in publishing this book. I lost one entire Chapter of the Manuscript, The Social Economy, it accidentally being burned, and not feeling well and energetic at the time I had to finish up the book without this last Chapter, but the Pamphlet accompanying each Problem of Life book, practically contains the same theories and principles that the Social Economy held. A few years (...) ago I Visited Florida, and in my wanderings in that romantic Country I met with a Farmer, who wasalso a printer in a small way, who undertook to print my book on his small hand press, one page at a'time, when not occupied with his duties on the farm. So you see it was a big undertaking, and not a very easy job to print 500 Copies, - but he did gt Thus the publishing of this little book was quite a problem in itself. But my publisher has solved his part of the work well. Thus, although this book was written in a great Northern City, midst its noises and bustle of commerce and industry, and midst a sea. Of humanity in all its phases of human nature it was print ed far away in the South, in a beautiful Ideal hammock home, midst Magnolias and Palms swaying and murmur ing love to breezes scented with Jessamine. Where the song of the Mocking Bird, the cricket, and the whip-poor-will soothe the Soul. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Bringing together scholars from philosophy, bioethics, law, sociology, and anthropology, this topical collection explores how innovations in the field of biomedicine and the life sciences are challenging and transforming traditional understandings of human temporality and of the temporal duration, extension and structure of human life. The contributions aim to expand the theoretical debate by highlighting the significance of time and human temporality in different discourses and practical contexts, and developing concrete, empirically informed, and culturally sensitive perspectives. The collection is structured (...) around three main foci: the beginning of life, the middle of life, and later life. This structure facilitates an in-depth examination of specific technological and biographical contexts and at the same time allows an overarching comparison of relevant similarities and differences between life phases and fields of application. (shrink)

In this paper we draw from the literatures on corporate nonmarket strategies, resource-based view of the firm, and industry life-cycle to investigate how the market and nonmarket strategic resources of a firm change in the emergence of an industry lifecycle. We do this by examining the outsourcing business in Finnish primary healthcare from its inception in 2004 to 2009. Theoretically, we aim to contribute to the discussion of the importance of strategic resources (both market and nonmarket) in the early phase (...) of an industry life cycle, and how these resources evolve over time. (shrink)

Nowadays it is increasingly common that the patients in the end of life phase choose to be cared for in their own home. Therefore it is vital to identify significant factors in order to prevent unnecessary suffering for dying patients and their families in end-of-life homecare. This study aimed to describe 10 nurses’ perceptions of significant factors that contribute to good end-of-life care in the patients own home. The transcribed texts from the interviews’ were analyzed using phenomenological hermeneutical method, which (...) focuses on the life-world of human beings. The results demonstrate that good end-of-life care presupposes that the aim of the caring staff is to provide safety, autonomy and integrity for the patient and family in order to create the respect required for as good and dignified a death as possible. (shrink)

Life history theory in biology helps prompt the question: Does literature reflect the different phases of human life history equally? And if not, why not? i suggest that it does not. The centrality of sexual love and violent death in literature reflects the two key factors in biological evolution: reproduction and survival. But the very familiarity of these themes poses risks for storytellers. since nothing makes for more arresting unpredictability than conflicting motives in active opposition, stories tend to focus disproportionately (...) on conflicts of wills around love (mate choice and retention) and death (social oppositions and transgressions). Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale offers an illuminating example. (shrink)

What conditions the possibility of existentially valuable experience? Against nihilism, the threat that philosophical cognition undermines the very idea of purposiveness, German idealism posits that we are unconditionally conditioned by life, construed as the infinite purposive activity of reason. I reconstruct Schelling’s critique of this project as defending the idea that death conditions or puts into question our rational activity. Scholars tend to read the idealists as rejecting Kant’s idea of an unknowable thing in itself by grounding philosophy on a (...) knowable first principle and tend to situate Schelling as a phase between or a late attack on Fichte and Hegel. Part I gives a systematic account missing on the former, arguing that idealism is an instance of immortalism, which holds that life is the unconditioned condition of rational activity, while death is unconditionally conditioned. Part II gives a historical account missing on the latter, arguing that Schelling is an early and continual critic of idealism on behalf of mortalism, which holds that death unconditionally conditions rational activity. My first argument modifies typical readings of German idealism, revealing a deep connection between its rejection Kant’s idea and its refusal to let death put us into question. My second complicates typical readings of Schelling, casting his mortalism as rehabilitating the idea that something radically outstrips rational activity while representing a regulative ideal. Although Schelling’s mortalism anticipates Heidegger’s, they differ: Schelling aligns death with the goal of systematic knowing, Heidegger with taking over one’s history as care. But Schelling overcomes immortalism, enabling Heidegger’s idea of death. Part III shows this idea is structurally analogous to Kant’s idea of the thing in itself. Immortalism’s failure leaves unsolved two antinomies I argue are formally identical and only solvable by thinking these ideas as boundary concepts the thought of which is necessary for the unity, respectively, of finite being and finite understanding. By reconstructing the role of death in Schelling’s internal critique of German idealism, then, my thesis also brings into closer contact Kant’s transcendental and Heidegger’s existential projects. (shrink)

Let me start with my general thesis: that psychoanalysis has gone through three phases. It has been a psychology first of the unconscious, second as psychology of the ego, and today, I believe, a psychology of the self. . . . To a surprising extent, the modern American literary critic has sought the same impersonal, generalized kind of quasi-scientific knowledge. We anglophones reacted against the over-indulgence in subjectivity by Victorian and Georgian critics. We also reacted against the uncritical use of (...) extraliterary knowledge, connections that were often aimless and unconvincing between literary works and their authors' autobiographies or literary periods. We sought instead an analytical rigor, at first by searching out the organic unity of particular literary works, then by extending the methods of close reading we developed that way to the total works of an author, to myths and popular arts, to the language of everyday life, and even to such artifices as Volkswagens, supermarkets, and political candidates. Norman N. Holland is professor of English and director of the Center for the Psychological Study of the Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of six books, of which Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare , The Dynamics of Literary Response , Poems in Persons , and Five Readers Reading deal directly with problems of psychological criticism. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Human Identity" and "Why Ellen Laughed". (shrink)

In multi-stakeholder networks, actors from civil society, business and governmental institutions come together in order to find a common solution to a problem that affects all of them. Problems approached by such networks often affect people across national boundaries, tend to be very complex and are not sufficiently understood. In multi-stakeholder networks, information concerning a problem is gathered from different sources, learning takes place, conflicts between participants are addressed and cooperation is sought. Corporations are key actors in many networks, because (...) the problems addressed are frequently related to business activities. The aim of this article is to conceptualise multi-stakeholder networks by proposing a problem-centred stakeholder definition. From an analysis of several case studies, a life cycle model is deduced that distinguishes seven phases: initiation, acquaintance, first and second agreement, implementation, consolidation and institutionalisation. (shrink)

Well prior to the invention of the term ‘biology’ in the early 1800s by Lamarck and Treviranus (and lesser-known figures in the decades prior), and also prior to the appearance of terms such as ‘organism’ under the pen of Leibniz and Stahl in the early 1700s, the question of ‘Life’, that is, the status of living organisms within the broader physico-mechanical universe, agitated different corners of the European intellectual scene. From modern Epicureanism to medical Newtonianism, from Stahlian animism to the (...) discourse on the ‘animal economy’ in vitalist medicine, models of living being were constructed in opposition to ‘merely anatomical’, structural, mechanical models. It is therefore striking that the classic narratives of the Scientific Revolution conspicuously avoid any consideration of what status to grant living beings in a newly physicalized universe (I discuss this in Wolfe 2011, 2019 chapt. 1). Neither Harvey, nor Boyle, nor Locke (to name some likely candidates, the latter having studied with Willis and collaborated with Sydenham) ever ask what makes organisms unique, or conversely, what does not. In this chapter I seek to establish how something we might call ‘the knowledge of Life’, to use an expression of Georges Canguilhem’s, emerged as part of early modernity without being part of the mainstream history of life science. This leads to the question, can one can correlate early modern “knowledge of life” with the emergence of a science called ‘biology’? (see Zammito 2018, Wolfe 2019, Bognon-Küss and Wolfe eds. 2019). It was once fashionable to speak of, e.g. ‘precursors of Darwin’, and then Canguilhem and Foucault famously did away with the category of precursor. But how then do we account for the phase that precedes the constitution of a science? With the case of biology, how do we account for the increasing fascination with the ontology of Life during the decades prior to the ‘naming of biology’, as McLaughlin has called it, at the end of the eighteenth century? This increased focus on Life and the ontology of Life sits awkwardly, both with mainstream narratives of the Scientific Revolution and of the history of biology. In seeking to address this increased focus (in which vitalism plays a role but was by no means the only conceptual actor: Wolfe 2020), I critically examine Foucault’s notorious claim (Foucault 1966) that there was no such thing as ‘Life’ in the eighteenth century and thus no such thing as biology. (shrink)

From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day, philosophy in Austria has progressed through four phases. Theparticularities of the first three of these phases have prompted a number of commentators rightly to distinguish a characteristic Austrian, as distinct from German, way of doing philosophy. The main figure of the second phase was Franz Brentano, and his distinctive theory of the four-phase cycle of philosophical development is outlined, and critically compared to other views of the development of philosophy. (...) In Austria itself the caesuras between the phases were marked as much by political as by philosophical events, and the paper shows how philosophy in Austria has been notable in all its phases for the high level and overwhelmingly negative effect of political interference in intellectual life, a doleful saga which continues to this day. (shrink)

The aim of the article. The aim of the article is to identify the components of social and economic systems life cycle. To achieve this aim, the article describes the traits and characteristics of the system, determines the features of social and economic systems functioning and is applied a systematic approach in the study of their life cycle. The results of the analysis. It is determined that the development of social and economic systems has signs of cyclicity and is explained (...) methodologically by the axiomatics, rules and laws. Understanding of circular patterns has been formed long ago and now is recorded by scientists monitoring the properties of natural and artificial environment of human activity. During the study, it was found out that in scientific literature there is no unified description of the life cycle elements of social and economic systems at personal, micro, meso, macro and global levels. The paper investigates the cyclical patterns in multilevel social and economic systems for a human, employee, family, product, company, city, industry, elite, macroeconomic indicators, humanity, global processes, global economic system and the Universe. It is noted that at grass-roots administrative levels of the global environment of a human life activity system, a thesis about the cyclicity of development and the stages of the life cycle is considered by a wide circle of scientists and is doubtless. On hierarchically higher management levels of the global environment of human activity system, the scientists noticed the similar patterns of the cyclical nature. Problematic and discussion questions about cyclic development of social and economic systems are identified: the uncertainty of the driving force source of repeated changes; the vague distinction between systemic (internal) and off-system (external) influence on development; the lack of a unified description of development nature at different managerial levels; the use of different descriptive terms for the same constituent elements of repeated changes (period, stage, phase, wave, cycle); the uncertainty of the number of repeated changes constituent elements; the absence of an identification mechanism of the exact time of changes in the constituent elements of repeated changes; the surface description of out-of-system period of the subjects activity («before-system» period of creation and «after-system» period of liquidation); attaching more importance to primary and less importance to ultimate component elements of the repeated changes; the lack of reliable mechanism for predicting and forecasting the dynamics of constituent components of repeated changes. It is noted that all social and economic systems are developed within repeated changes and they have the same attributes of cyclicity: the fluctuation of indicators is marked that characterize the condition of the subject; the presence of system (from creation to liquidation) and out-of-system (creation – «design» and liquidation – «disposal») periods are noted; the subjects are created by the actions of other subjects (that is, subjects do not arise «out of nowhere», but are the result of actions of other subjects – «constructors»); after cessation of subjects functioning, their resources are used by other subjects (that is, the subjects do not disappear «nowhere», and they are transformed into the resources of other subjects – «recovery»); a unidirectional life cycle from «birth» to «death» is observed in the subjects; the subjects do not have to undergo the whole life cycle (each time might be the last); the subjects display similar changes of the indicators during their activity; ascending, peak and descending fluctuations of indicators are observed in the subjects; minor fluctuations occur in the constituent elements; the subjects have individual nature of indicator fluctuations and duration of activity. Conclusions and directions of further researches. The scientific novelty of the study is identification structure of life cycle of social and economic system with definitions of: common («before-system state», «growth», «stabilization», «reduction», «after-system state») and specific («creation», «slow growth», «rapid growth», «growth stabilization», «short stabilization», «rapid reduction», «slow reduction», «liquidation») constituent elements of repeated changes; marginal borders of indicators; dynamics of constituent elements of life cycle; key points of changing nature of the indicators dynamics. Identification of the life cycle of social and economic systems characterizes potentially possible limits of their activity in time and provides the possibility of further research of aspects of the cyclical development for methodological basis formation and the development of applied measures of systemic development in the areas of marketing and management innovations. (shrink)

The exceptional pandemic due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has obliged all Italians to stay at home. In the literature, there are evidences that traumatic global events, such as natural catastrophes and pandemic, have negative effects on the physical and psychological health of the population. We carried out a survey to analyze the physical and psychological conditions of Italians during the pandemic. Due to the severe limitations in moving during the phase one lockdown, the survey was administered by internet. (...) Results show that Italians followed the provisions established by the Italian government to avoid contamination, but 43% of them declared to have suffered from physical symptoms, in particular migraine, sleep disorders, persistent exhaustion, and difficulty of concentration. They have great fear to be contaminated or that relatives or friends can be contaminated, and they actively take actions to avoid contamination. Participants declared that they had suffered a lot of inconveniences due to restrictions in their movements, and that their life habits were strongly changed. They spent their time at home in different activities, but their psychological well-being was strongly impaired by the lockdown. The level of anxiety tripled, in relation to the prepandemic period, and 30% of males and 41% of females declared to have severe levels of depression. Participants with high levels of optimism and hopefulness show a stronger resilience against anxiety and depression. In addition, there is a negative correlation between anxiety and depression and the five factors of personality. These results show that psychological diseases must not be neglected, and that people in lockdown do need support for their psychological health, also with the help of internet and communication technologies. (shrink)

The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying has recently been the topic of substantial media interest and also been subject to the independent Neuberger Review. This review has identified clear failings in some areas of care and recommended the Liverpool Care Pathway be phased out. I argue that while the evidence gathered of poor incidences of practice by the Review is of genuine concern for end of life care, the inferences drawn from this evidence are inconsistent with the causes for (...) the concern. Seeking to end an approach that is widely seen as best practice and which can genuinely deliver high quality care because of negative impressions that have been formed from failing to implement it properly is not a good basis for radically overhauling our approach to end of life care. I conclude that improvements in training, communication, and ethical decision-making, without the added demand to end the Liverpool Care Pathway would have resulted in a genuine advance in end of life care. (shrink)