This article presents the topic of crisis in the context of prevention in pastoral workers. It points to the possibility of coping with crisis and thus offers a theological view of overcoming it. It is based on the theoretical points of view and practical experience of pastoral workers. Selected aspects, types, preventions and therapies of crisis at the psychotherapeutic or spiritual-theological level are presented in this paper. -/- .

Philosophical counselling is generally understood as a movement in practical philosophy that helps counselees, i.e. clients, resolve everyday problems with the help of philosophy. Moving outside of the scope of what philosophy can do, however, is a problem. More specifically, when the philosophical counsellor moves outside of the so-called realm of philosophy into the realm of psychotherapy, i.e. medical framework, problem resolution and ameliorative goals might be on the table. This plays into the hands of critics who state that philosophical (...) counselling is encroaching on the terrain of the mental health professions without, inter alia, the proper evidence of its treatment efficacy. This paper is an attempt to keep the philosophical counsellor in the realm of philosophy, and by doing this to keep them busy with philosophising as such, i.e. philosophising as an end in itself. In particular, the article focuses on a novel interpretation of how to approach the counselee’s problem so that the philosophical counsellor does not fall prey to problem resolving and ameliorative endeavours. To substantiate this novel reinterpretation to the counselee’s problem, I turn to the notions of the Pyrrhonian aporia and the Derridean perhaps, in conjunction with a crucial position exclusively available to the counselee in philosophical counselling. (shrink)

Reflecting on group theory within clinical supervision offers useful vantage points from which to engage nursing and the helping professions in the task of supervisory practice. This paper presents reflective experiences of group clinical supervision training and practice through a critique of Hawkins and Shohet’s process centred model. The underlying premise of transference hypothesis is that experiences and memories from the past inform present behaviours. Little has been written about the hypothesis in relation to clinical supervision in nursing (...) and the helping professions. However, the hypothesis was criticised by John M. Shlien in the 1980s and remains pertinent today due to expansion into social and healthcare practice. Reflective autobiographical diary entries focus on the model’s two latter stages which propose the use of Sigmund Freud’s transference hypothesis. The work of Freud, Foulkes, Heidegger and Hawkins and Shohet are synthesised and conclude with a phenomenological suggestion that immediacy and openness are necessary ontological conditions for group clinical supervision. Valuing empathic attunement to better understand group clinical supervision may be more important than theoretical distractions for non-therapeutic clinical supervision practice. (shrink)

Given that the law is helpful, essential and non-separable with our lives, we surely would like to know the people that make laws and who practice in the legal profession. This query is the recent theme we have pursued in this and other related projects. The investigation has revealed a knowledge economy (savoir-faire) that has entwined law and the actions of law people, which growingly became edged to explain their behavior and moral and professional conduct. The expectation has been that (...) graduate law classes are for foreign lawyers who would return to their home country to work as international lawyers or as professors. That has long been deemed as a given; but the precise reality has not been previously unraveled. With this backdrop, the current paper purports to survey the status and performance of graduate law degree holders in US law school, to rank global law schools, and explore the implications and findings concerning the processes and outcomes of their missions. (shrink)

Article 8 of the African Aspirations for 2063 stipulates that the African people are confident that their countries have the ability and competence to realize or accomplish their full potential in development, culture, and peace. The vast majority of countries in Africa have worked toward establishing flourishing, inclusive, successful and prosperous societies by eradicating any forms of violation of children’s rights (African Union Commission, 2015). Nevertheless, violation of children’s rights remains present in most developing countries including the country of Cameroon. (...) This research aims to explore the forms of violation of children’s rights having a dramatic incident in school attendance in the Kadey Division of Cameroon, East Region of Cameroon. This research work is inductive, values bias and uses the grounded theory of the qualitative method approach. 15 participants have been selected from 3 major focused groups of different stakeholders in the Kadey Division, East Region of Cameroon. The theoretical saturation code was used to explain the relevance of the sample size. Data were examined using the open, axial, and selective coding processes. The results were tested for internal and external validity based on credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability consideration. The philosophical focused on subjectivism ontology and interpretivism perspective. The study is an investigative case study model. The study showed that the forms of violation of children’s rights in the Kadey division include the recruitment and use of children, the denial of humanitarian access, the sexual violence against children and the killing and hurting of children. This study encourages school leaders in the Kadey Division to acknowledge that schools are not meant to function apart from the local community. Promoting strong collaborative work ethics between the major educational stakeholders may help prevent and reduce violence against children within and outside the school milieu and therefore duplicate school attendance. (UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia, 2016). (shrink)

Euthanasia and the duty to die have both been thoroughly discussed in the field of bioethics as morally justifiable practices within medical healthcare contexts. The existence of a narrow connection between both could also be established, for people having a duty to die should be allowed to actively hasten their death by the active means offered by euthanasia. Choosing the right time to end one’s own life is a decisive factor to retain autonomy at the end of our lives. However, (...) there is no definitive consensus on why physicians should be the ones performing the medical procedure to end a person’s life. The moral problems arising from such assertion are not to be taken lightly, for medical tradition has long regarded the duty not to kill, not to actively end a patient’s life, as the core moral obligation that gives meaning to the medical profession. Our concern is to question the moral justifiability of the arguments offered by physicians not to actively help patients die. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to develop a program resource for helping and mental health professionals to foster proactive coping and diminish dysfunctional coping from work stressors. Professionals succumb to chronic stressors and secondary traumatic stress due to their vocation, often disregarding self-care. Should this type of resource be implemented, psychological and social resources would be required. The need for proactive coping is a generally accepted concept, but helping and mental health professionals often lack resources, limiting advocacy and resilience. Self-help (...) resources are frequently perceived as self-indulgence, in addition to the concept that professionals provide care, not the clients receiving care. Moreover, victimization by stigmas and emotional contagion surrounds helping and mental health professions. Addressing these concerns by implementing an accessible and advocate-heavy website may mitigate experienced ramifications by increasing retention, psychological well-being, resilience, and support. Most importantly, it may reduce maladaptive behaviors and standardize professional self-care. (shrink)

Lloyd Jones’s *The Book of Fame*, a novel about the stunningly successful 1905 British tour of the New Zealand rugby team, represents both skilled group action and the difficulty of capturing it in words. The novel’s form is as fluid and deceptive, as adaptable and integrated, as the sweetly shaped play of the team that became known during this tour for the first time as the All Blacks. It treats sport on its own terms as a rich world, a set (...) of bodily skills, and an honest profession in itself. A reading of *The Book of Fame* can contribute to the interdisciplinary study of literature and cognition, exemplifying two-way ‘exchange values’. On the one hand, we gain insights into the nature of skilful group agency, of distinct forms and at distinct timescales, by focussing on the precise forms taken by the All Blacks’ creation of space. Here, we treat The Book of Fame as a brilliant evocation of features of collective thought, movement, and emotion that both everyday and scientific inquiry can easily miss. On the other hand, we also read back into the novel a subtle, fascinated interrogation of the mechanisms by which small groups form, evolve, and act. In this more ambitious mode of analysis, we use independently motivated theoretical concerns to help us see real features of the literary work that might otherwise remain invisible. We focus on the relationship between skilful performance and collective action. These topics fall outside the ambit of much current work by literary theorists using cognitive research, who tend to focus on theory of mind and modularity, metaphor and blending, emotion and empathy, consciousness and concepts, representation and so on. But skilled performance and collective action comprise surprisingly lively research fields across the sciences, from neuropsychology to philosophy of mind and cognitive anthropology. These areas of inquiry may provide even more productive avenues for future work in the interfield of literary and cultural theory and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Following the Introduction, the second section of this essay lays out Tom Cavanaugh’s helpful and convincing account of the enduring significance of the Hippocratic Oath in terms of how it responds to the problem of iatrogenic harm. The third section discusses something underemphasized in Cavanaugh’s account, namely, the key role of the virtue of piety within the Oath and the profession it establishes, and argues that this virtue should be regarded as integral to an authentic Hippocratic ethic. The fourth and (...) final section briefly examines the connection between medicine and philosophy, focusing on how both should be seen as wisdom-seeking ways of life, and shows the relevance of this for regarding the virtue of piety as the key virtue of medical practice. (shrink)

This article is in a larger textbook of articles on Medical Ethics. It identifies a number of values that underlie professional commitments to confidentiality that are involved in protecting or promoting the client's (1) privacy, (2)social status, (3) economic advantages, (4) openness of communications, (5) seeking professional help, (6) trust in professionals, (7) autonomous control over personal information. The problem of making exceptions to confidentiality commitments is also examined.

Authors deal with theoretical and social contexts of the teaching profession as a starting point for empirical research into ethical relationships among Slovak primary and secondary school teachers. They surveyed the opinions of teachers at that level regarding their relationship with students, parents, colleagues and superiors. According to the research results, more than 80% of respondents positively rate the behaviour of teachers towards their students and parents from the viewpoint of realising ethical values, based on which they could be an (...) ethical model for their students. The level of relationships among colleagues received a less optimistic rating. They were, however, much more critical in evaluating their superiors. Only approximately 60% of the members of school management could be an ethical model for other teachers. (shrink)

The question of when to stop an unsuccessful experiment can be difficult to answer from an individual perspective. To help to guide these decisions, we turn to the social epistemology of science and investigate knowledge inquisition within a group. We focused on the expensive and lengthy experiments in high energy physics, which were suitable for citation-based analysis because of the relatively quick and reliable consensus about the importance of results in the field. In particular, we tested whether the time spent (...) on a scientific project correlates with the project output. Our results are based on data from the high energy physics laboratory Fermilab. They point out that there is an epistemic saturation point in experimenting, after which the likelihood of obtaining major results drops. With time the number of less significant publications does increase, but highly cited ones do not get published. Since many projects continue to run after the epistemic saturation point, it becomes clearer that decisions made about continuing them are not always rational. (shrink)

In fact, humans have always been closely related to others. This relationship can be meant to encounter ethical counselor-counselee which is based on an attitude of responsibility. The concept of Levinas’s responsibility can be laid at the foundation for the ethical relationship of counselor-counselee to contribute and strengthen the concept of responsibility in the literature of guidance and counseling, as well as in counseling practices. Based on the literature review and critical analysis, we found the following results: 1) The (...) class='Hi'>helping profession is to be interpreted in the framework of thinking responsibility, and the responsibility of counselor-counselee should be able to be realized in concrete actions and patterned being-for so that it becomes I-for-You (asymmetrical), should not be reversed into a being-with so that it becomes You-to-I (reciprocity/mutuality); 2) Responsibility in the context of multicultural counseling is seen in phenomenological by pointing at reality in awareness counselor (intentionality); 3) Empathy as a major component of the counselor in the basic attitude of its existence takes responsibility for substitution (one-in-the-place-of-another). The responsibility of substitution is the unique and the total responsibility of the counselor-counselee; and 4) Reconciliation as the main goal of responsibility. (shrink)

The study attempted to analyze the reasons for joining SHG’s, socioeconomic condition of women self-help group members before and after joining the SHGs and their satisfaction level. For the analysis, primary data collected from 120 women SHG members of north district, Tripura. The chisquare test is used as statistical tools for analyzing the data and testing the hypothesis. The hypothetical analysis shows that there is no significant relationship between the age, profession, income level and level of satisfaction. But educational qualification (...) and the satisfaction level of women has a significant relationship. Finally the study concludes that maximum women group members are satisfied with the activities of SHGs and they got benefitafter joining the SHGs. (shrink)

Parenthood is one of the best gifts nature and god has given to humans. Being a parent is a feeling that can be compared to none other but as a baby caretaker a nanny can do this. As a parent, we always strive to provide the best of everything to our children. This however often comes at a price. Mostly it means that both the parents have to be working in order to provide the best facilities and at the same (...) time secure the future of their children and Newborn Baby. Even if one of the parent chooses to sacrifice the career and stay at home, raising a child in a nuclear family set up is still a challenge. -/- This is when an experienced and gentle baby caretaker can be of utmost help. However such caretaker who can be entrusted with the care and security of your child is often hard to find. Especially in cities like NOIDA baby caretaker are available for your service. Well no more. -/- No more is the need to sacrifice your career or professional aspirations. You can peacefully leave to work, entrusting your lovely children in the hands of the baby caretaker. Majority of the time that your child will be spending is with the caretaker and it is therefore absolutely necessary that a baby caretaker possess all the qualities of a good parent. Benevolence, patience, care and attention, all these qualities can be found in the baby caretaker provided by us. Our caretaker ensures the welfare of the child, creating the environment for sound mental, emotional and health development of the children. -/- We need to guarantee that the caretaker has the child's best interest at heart and looks at the security of our child with the same eye as we do. We select the baby caretakers that view this profession as means of contentment and satisfaction in their lives and not just another menial job to earn their livelihood. Children have the inherent need to have somebody always around them in oder to feel secure and wanted, avoiding loneliness and boredom. A Caretaker for baby in Noida not only provides this companion but also ensures that the natural curiosity of a child is kept alive even in the absence of their parents. -/- Big cities with the diverse kind of population, mostly coming to work from various parts of the country, have had some history of violent cases. And that’s why precaution should be taken while hiring Best caretaker in Noida . With thorough background check and verified references, all such apprehensions can be laid to rest.+ . (shrink)

Background Professional communities such as the medical community are acutely concerned with negligence: the category of misconduct where a professional does not live up to the standards expected of a professional of similar qualifications. Since science is currently strengthening its structures of self-regulation in parallel to the professions, this raises the question to what extent the scientific community is concerned with negligence, and if not, whether it should be. By means of comparative analysis of medical and scientific codes of (...) conduct, we aim to highlight the role of negligence provisions in codes of conduct for scientists, and to discuss the normative consequences for future codes of conduct. -/- Methods We collected scientific and medical codes of conduct in a selection of OECD countries, and submitted each code of conduct to comparative textual analysis. -/- Results Negligence is invariably listed as an infraction of the norms of integrity in medical codes of conduct, but only rarely so in the scientific codes. When the latter list negligence, they typically do not provide any detail on the meaning of ‘negligence’. -/- Discussion Unlike codes of conduct for professionals, current codes of conduct for scientists are largely silent on the issue of negligence, or explicitly exclude negligence as a type of misconduct. In the few cases where negligence is stipulated to constitute misconduct, no responsibilities are identified that would help prevent negligence. While we caution against unreasonable negligence provisions as well as disproportionate sanctioning systems, we do argue that negligence provisions are crucial for justified trust in the scientific community, and hence that there is a very strong rationale for including negligence provisions in codes of conduct. (shrink)

As we have seen in the transition form Part I to Part II of this book, the inductive riskiness of doxastic methods applied in testimonial uptake or prescribed as exemplary of religious faith, helpfully operationalizes the broader social scientific, philosophical, moral, and theological interest that people may have with problems of religious luck. Accordingly, we will now speak less about luck, but more about the manner in which highly risky cognitive strategies are correlated with psychological studies of bias studies and (...) human cognitive ecology. Chapter Four is concerned with connections between psychological study of biases and heuristics, and the comparative study of fundamentalism. The first section looks at work by psychologists and philosophers on our bias blind spot. Later sections ask, ‘In what ways might biases and heuristics play a special role in aiding our understanding of, and response to, fundamentalist orientation?’. The judgments we make in ignorance of our own biases Montaigne calls our importunate presumptions, and he suggests a host of practical factors that make them appealing. Montaigne, as I discuss in the first section, associates many of our errors with one or another kind of presumption, often about our similarity or differences from others, or from God. Our obvious psychographic diversity, and the polemical ground dynamics involved in our ‘culture wars’ are compounded on the agential side by the invisibility of our biases to ourselves. A number of person and social biases are described that plausibly affect all of our beliefs in domains of controversial views, religious views included. The second section continues to study of how etiological symmetry (similar patterns of belief-uptake) gives rise to religious contrariety (diverse narratives and theologies) in testimonial faith traditions, and what the implications of this are for philosophy of religion, generally, and for an improved comparative study of fundamentalism, in particular. Utilizing the work of philosophers such as Rachel Fraser and psychologists such as Emily Pronin and her co-authors, I offer a four-step genealogical account for how etiological symmetry so easily gives rise to religious contrariety. This account begins with the narrative nature of testimony in the Abrahamic family of religions, and how narrative content confounds our “source monitoring.” My genealogy also introduces what I term biased-closure inferences (BCI) as one of the key enablers of religious exclusivism and absolutism. These are the seemingly ‘logical’ but actually very self-serving inferences people often make, inferences from their own belief being true, to any belief contrary to it being false. Those who claim unique truth, epistemic access, and/or virtue and religious value for the home religion are no exception to the broad pertinence of bias studies across domains of controversial view. The proximate causes of belief are all that we can study, and in these there may be significant etiological symmetries. Yet those groups themselves, especially to the extent that they are exclusivist, are tunnel-visioned on claims of doctrinal uniqueness: on content differences of a theological sort. Comparative philosophy is met with the puzzlement that symmetric or essentially similar doxastic strategies should give rise not just to cognitive diversity, but to what we can call polarized or polemical contrariety, contrariety of a kind where each view adamantly rejects all others. Arguably, the more that theologies offer explanations of a counter-inductive sort, or profess counter-inductive thinking as exemplary of faith, the better evidential ground there for inferring that bias involved in the acquisition or maintenance of beliefs. This provides more substance to the question of when censure, and etiological challenges to faith-based beliefs are philosophically well-motivated. (shrink)

Toleration is one of many responses toward diversity and difference. With the growing diversity, the theme of toleration has often taken center stage in discussions of multiculturalism and social pluralism. Nonetheless, it has not received much attention in the social work profession. Social workers often encounter situations in which they face a choice between tolerating and not tolerating. We argue that toleration is a legitimate and relevant topic in social work discourse. To make this point, first, this paper discusses different (...) conceptions of toleration. Then, it demonstrates its relevance to social work and explores a potential benefit of including the idea of toleration in social work discourse. Social work code of ethics implicitly supports toleration, or at least respect-toleration and esteem-toleration. Incorporating toleration in social work discourse may help social workers to better cope with or reduce ethical stress and disjuncture. (shrink)

Scholars have emphasized that decisions about technology can be influenced by philosophy of technology assumptions, and have argued for research that critically questions technological determinist assumptions. Empirical studies of technology management in fields other than K-12 education provided evidence that philosophy of technology assumptions, including technological determinism, can influence the practice of technology leadership. A qualitative study was conducted to a) examine what philosophy of technology assumptions are present in the thinking of K-12 technology leaders, b) investigate how the assumptions (...) may influence technology decision making, and c) explore whether technological determinist assumptions are present. The research design aligned with Corbin and Strauss qualitative data analysis, and employed constant comparative analysis, theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation of categories. Subjects involved 31 technology directors and instructional technology specialists from Virginia school districts, and data collection involved interviews following a semi-structured protocol, and a written questionnaire with open-ended questions. The study found that three broad philosophy of technology views were widely held by participants, including an instrumental view of technology, technological optimism, and a technological determinist perspective that sees technological change as inevitable. The core category and central phenomenon that emerged was that technology leaders approach technology leadership through a practice of Keep up with technology (or be left behind). The core category had two main properties that are in conflict with each other, pressure to keep up with technology, and the resistance to technological change they encounter in schools. The study found that technology leaders are guided by two main approaches to technology decision making, represented by the categories Educational goals and curriculum should drive technology, and Keep up with Technology (or be left behind). As leaders deal with their perceived experience of the inevitability of technological change, and their concern for preparing students for a technological future, the core category Keep up with technology (or be left behind) is given the greater weight in technology decision making. The researcher recommends that similar qualitative studies be conducted involving technology leaders outside Virginia, and with other types of educators. It is also recommended that data from this or other qualitative studies be used to help develop and validate a quantitative instrument to measure philosophy of technology assumptions, for use in quantitative studies. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

This study made use of descriptive correlational method of research that utilized standard questionnaires as primary data gathering tools, substantiated by extensive documentary analysis. The respondents of the study were teachers and principals of public secondary schools in the City Division of Malolos. The following null hypotheses were subjected for testing at .05 level of significance. “The transformational leadership of principals in the City Division of Malolos does not significantly affect students’ academic achievement” “The quality of school learning environment in (...) the City Division of Malolos does not significantly affect students’ academic achievement”. School principals who are good transformational leaders are contributors of best possible leadership outputs that facilitate more students learning and academic achievement, likewise would help teachers to become more productive in practicing their teaching professions as committed member of school organization. The very good quality of school learning environment in the City Division of Malolos can be a springboard to the achievement of 21st century classroom experience. Principals’ transformational leadership significantly influences the academic achievement of students in English, Math, and Science. The quality of school learning environment significantly influences the academic achievement of students in English, Math, and Science. Implications drawn from the findings of the study are good insights that may be used in further improving the quality academic achievement of students in public secondary schools. (shrink)

This article is a data-driven critique of The Philosophical Gourmet Report, the most institutionally influential publication in the field of Anglophone philosophy. The PGR is influential because it is perceived to be of high value. The article demonstrates that the actual value of the PGR, in its current form, is not nearly as high as it is assumed to be and that the PGR is, in fact, detrimental to the profession. The article lists and explains five objections to the methods (...) and methodology of the report. Taken together, the objections demonstrate that the report is severely flawed, failing to provide the information it purports to and damaging the profession overall. Finally, the article explains how several modifications may improve the PGR so that it can more legitimately and equitably play the role it already plays. (shrink)

: The debate between proponents of ideal and non-ideal approaches to political philosophy has thus far been framed as a meta-level debate about normative theory. The argument of this essay will be that the ideal/non-ideal debate can be helpfully reframed as a ground-level debate within normative theory. Specifically, it can be understood as a debate within the applied normative field of professional ethics, with the profession being examined that of political philosophy itself. If the community of academic political theorists and (...) philosophers cannot help us navigate the problems we face in actual political life, they have not lived up to the moral demands of their vocation. A moderate form of what David Estlund decries as “utopophobia” is therefore an integral element of a proper professional ethic for political philosophers. The moderate utopophobe maintains that while devoting scarce time and resources to constructing utopias may sometimes be justifiable, it is never self-justifying. Utopianism is defensible only insofar as it can reasonably be expected to help inform or improve nonutopian political thinking. (shrink)

The modern university and the academic profession itself are facing new challenges: First, the increasing complexity of labor markets and globalization are undermining the structure of the academic profession, and secondly, the rise in cost of university research calls into question the autonomy of the university. The internationalization of the academic labor market encourages rethinking the structure of academic professions that have historically been focused on national (regional) contexts. The university is too expensive for the state and/or for students. (...) One way to preserve the autonomy of the university is to offer society, the state, and businesses a wide range of services. This study seeks to answer the following questions: Can bureaucratic (self-)management effectively regulate the growing body of the university? Is it necessary to relinquish part of the university’s autonomy to a hired manager? Can “soft managerialism” and new economic instruments help unleash the modern university’s potential for society and sustain its autonomy? (shrink)

Although the notion of universal human rights allows for the idea that states (and supranational organizations such as the European Union) can, or even should, control and impose restrictions on migration, both notions clearly do not sit well together. The ensuing tension manifests itself in our ambivalent attitude towards migration, but also affects the border guards who have to implement national and supranational policies on migration. Little has been written on the ethics that has to guide these border guards in (...) their work. Juxtaposing the ethics of border guarding against the ethics of the somewhat related military profession, this article attempts to (a) describe border guarding as a comparatively rule-guided profession; (b) outline the aim and basis of the ethics education that prepares border guards for their work; and (c) propose a research agenda for the future that should further our understanding of (a) and (b), but also help us improve the moral education of border guards. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey (...) also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession. (shrink)

This is a partly provocative essay edited as a humanitarian study in philosophy of science and social philosophy. The starting point is Isaac Asimov’s famous sci-fi novella “Profession” (1957) to be “back” extrapolated to today’s relation between Thomas Kuhn’s “normal science” and “scientific revolutions” (1962). The latter should be accomplished by Asimov’s main personage George Platen’s ilk (called “feeble minded” in the novella) versus the “burned minded” professionals able only to “normal science”. Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” in post-Hegelian manner (...) is now interpreted to an analogically supposed “end of scientific history” without “scientific revolutions” any more. The relevant dystopia of the prolonged or even “eternal” period of normal science is justified to the contemporary institution of science due to mechanisms such as “peer-review”, “impact-factor rating”, the projects’ competition for funding, etc. Positive feedbacks forcing all scientists needing careers to be more and more orthodox are demonstrated therefore establishing for that dystopia to be the real state of contemporary science. Two counterfactual case studies based correspondingly on Feyerabend’s “Against method” (1975) if Galilei should make his discoveries today and Sokal’s hoax (1996) if he suggested a scientific masterpiece to be really rejected by journals are discussed. Still one case study considering the abundance of Kelvin’s “clouds” on the horizon of today’s physics (dark matter, dark energy, entanglement, quantum gravitation, phenomena refuting the Big Bang, etc.) serves to verify the aforementioned conjecture that science has already entered that dystopia of eternal normal science. The conception of “ontomathematics” implying “creation ex nihilo” being scandalous for the dominating paradigm is sketched as an eventual revolutionary way out. An imaginary and utopic “happy end” reinterpreting the analogical “happy end” of Asimov’s “Profession” finishes the essay “instead of conclusion” relying on the Internet and AI in an increasingly “fluid” and anti-hierarchical society. (shrink)

This paper aims to describe the common situations happening in an actual classroom encounter in a Philippine school. It also points out the external expectations of the fresh graduates of education from the training to the actual real teaching. This article used an auto-ethnographical study that highlights the personal experience of the author to highlight the events of most teachers. It was noted that teaching is not only all about the subject matter but more about building a relationship with the (...) students as well. Therefore, building relationships with students requires approaches to be used, reflective stage, observation, and personal encounters as the best way to start learning. Because this is the time when you will start to understand and learn their nature when they are on the verge of a non-threatening atmosphere. (shrink)

The Hippocratic Oath is a code of ethics defining correct behaviour by physicians they are required to commit themselves to before being accepted into the profession. It was the first code of ethics for any profession. While originating in Ancient Greece, it subsequently evolved, but the current code still embodies many of the core injunctions of the original code. The most widely accepted current form is the 2006 The Declaration of Geneva by the World Medical Association to be taken before (...) being admitted as a member of the medical profession. The most important of its injunctions are: ‘The health of my patient will be my first consideration’ and ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life’. The first is a rewording of the injunction from Epidemics, Book I, of the Hippocratic school: ‘Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.’ This was later simplified to the most basic precept of the Hippocratic Oath: ‘First, do no harm.’ It is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare that, given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good. The development of neurotechnology could be subsumed with little modification under the Geneva formulation of the Hippocratic Oath, extending this precept to a commitment not to damage people’s psychological health. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conceptual debate on responsible innovation, and provides innovation practices and processes that can help to implement responsible innovation in the business context. Based on a systematic literature review of 72 empirical scholarly articles, it was possible to identify, analyse and synthesise empirical findings reported in studies on social, sustainable and responsible innovation practices in the business context. The synthesis of the included articles resulted in a refined framework for responsible innovation in the (...) business context. This framework includes an overview of innovation practices and processes that can enhance the dimensions of responsible innovation: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, deliberation, responsiveness and knowledge management. Additionally, knowledge gaps are identified and a research agenda for responsible innovation is proposed. This review can therefore serve as a next step in the theoretical and practical development of responsible innovation in general, and in the business context in particular. (shrink)

Teachers are considered committed to their job if they remain in their profession and accept professional responsibilities. This article aimed to investigate the public teachers' willingness to remain in their jobs and identify some determinants that causally affect it. The study employed a developed research instrument based on an existing research paper in the literature to gather primary data from cross-sectional public teachers. This study used random sampling to select the required participants of the survey and utilized appropriate statistical methods (...) (descriptive and inferential statistics) to summarize and extract information from the data gathered. This study involved five schools as subjects. Some descriptive analysis was utilized such as frequencies and percentages to give a description of the gathered data and extract relevant information. The results showed that female public teachers are more likely to stay in the profession as opposed to male teachers. In addition, employment status and job position are significant factors that influence teachers to stay in their profession. Conclusively, public teachers who are satisfied with their current income and work assignments are more likely economically secure and willing to serve. Hence, the study suggests that the government must support public teachers regarding incentives and benefits, salary increases, and other resources that improve their well-being and productivity, and avoid employee turnover. (shrink)

In a recent paper, I argued that philosophical intuitions are surprisingly robust both across demographic groups and across development. Machery and Stich reply by reviewing a series of studies that do show significant differences in philosophical intuition between different demographic groups. This is a helpful point, which gets at precisely the issues that are most relevant here. However, even when one looks at those very studies, one finds truly surprising robustness. In other words, despite the presence of statistically significant differences (...) between demographic groups, a core finding coming out of those studies is that philosophical intuitions are surprisingly robust across demographic groups. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has left a trail of untold damage in many countries, and there is no foreseeable end to its spread. Besides the loss of life, the impact of the virus on the economy and small businesses, in particular, is not yet clear. Even so, the policies aimed at containing the spread of the virus have exerted further pressure and uncertainty on the survival of small businesses in general and immigrant-owned businesses in particu­lar. This study explored the pockmark of (...) C0VID-19 on immigrant retail businesses in selected outlets in West Rand, Johannesburg. A qualitative research approach was adopted as it best supports the exploratory intent of the study. The purposive sampling technique was utilised to draw participants for the study until a saturation point was attained. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using unstructured, open-ended questions, with interviews recorded and transcribed. Atlas-ti 8 software was used to code, categorise and analyse the data to form themes and patterns, which helped to inform the outcome of the study. Findings indicate that none of the immigrant businesses was prepared for the pandemic and lockdown. Furthermore, it was found that most of the businesses may cease to exist due to cash fragility should the lockdown be extended for a longer period and the pandemic not abate soon. Despite the government having announced some palliative measures to help reduce the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on small businesses, results from this study indicate that immigrant businesses received no such support from the government. (shrink)

Bribing doctors for preferential treatment is rampant in the healthcare system of developing countries like Vietnam. Although bribery raises the out-of-pocket expenditures of patients, it is so common to be deemed an “envelope culture.” Given the little understanding of the underlying mechanism of the culture, this study employed the mindsponge theory for reasoning the mental processes of both patients and doctors for why they embrace the “envelope culture” and used the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to validate our reasoning. Analyzing (...) responses from 1042 Vietnamese patients, we discovered that bribing doctors can help patients reduce the destitution risk induced by treatment. Such effect of doctor bribery remains consistent among patients that have to pay high daily costs (e.g., accommodation and subsistence fees) regardless of their employment status. Nevertheless, for patients with no or unstable jobs, their risks of destitution increase if they have to pay more thank-you money. These findings suggest that doctor bribery is an adaptive strategy for patients in an environment where the healthcare supply cannot meet the actual demand. Moreover, healthcare equity is greatly exacerbated due to the envelope culture, as vulnerable individuals are exposed to a greater threat of poverty. At the same time, those with good economic conditions get preferential treatment by paying a higher amount of thank-you money. Healthcare workers’ ethics must be the top priority for an equitable and proper healthcare system. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is thought to face an ‘implementation challenge’: the challenge of securing uptake of engineered concepts. But is the fact that implementation is challenging really a defect to be overcome? What kind of picture of political life would be implied by making engineering easy to implement? We contend that the ambition to obviate the implementation challenge goes against the very idea of liberal democratic politics. On the picture we draw, the implementation challenge can be overcome by institutionalizing control over (...) conceptual uptake, and there are contexts—such as professions that depend on coordinated conceptual innovation—in which there are good reasons to institutionalize control in this fashion. But the liberal fear of this power to control conceptual uptake ending up in the wrong hands, combined with the democratic demand for freedom of thought as a precondition of genuine consent, yields a liberal democratic rationale for keeping implementation challenging. (shrink)

This review covers experimental approaches to sound-symbolism—from infants to adults, and from Sapir’s foundational studies to twenty-first century product naming. It synthesizes recent behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging work into a systematic overview of the cross-modal correspondences that underpin iconic links between form and meaning. It also identifies open questions and opportunities, showing how the future course of experimental iconicity research can benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary perspective. Combining insights from psychology and neuroscience with evidence from natural languages provides us with (...) opportunities for the experimental investigation of the role of sound-symbolism in language learning, language processing, and communication. The review finishes by describing how hypothesis-testing and model-building will help contribute to a cumulative science of sound-symbolism in human language. (shrink)

In this chapter, Ricardo Silvestre and Alan Herbert offer a reconstruction of the Gītā’s concept of God with a focus on the relationship between God and the world. They try to explain the claim that the Gītā is panentheistic. This is done with the help of some key notions of contemporary metaphysics (such as ontological dependence and fundamentality) along with the Indic notion of prakṛti, considered as a metaphysical primitive denoting the intimate relationship that exists between matter and conscious living (...) beings on the one hand, and God on the other. (shrink)

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a fluidic part of the brain’s microenvironment that isolates the brain from the rest of the body. CSF dilutes metabolites from neuronal activities and removes them from the brain. Its production and resorption are regulated dynamically and are central to maintaining brain homeostasis. We discovered that the major CSF source, the choroid plexus (CP), harbors the brain’s strongest circadian clock. Here, we consider some implications of the CP circadian clock for metabolite clearance in the brain. If (...) the circadian clock contributes to timed production of the CSF, its synchronization with sleep timing can maximize clearance efficiency and help prevent neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. (shrink)

Computer-Assisted Argument Mapping (CAAM) is a new way of understanding arguments. While still embryonic in its development and application, CAAM is being used increasingly as a training and development tool in the professions and government. Inroads are also being made in its application within education. CAAM claims to be helpful in an educational context, as a tool for students in responding to assessment tasks. However, to date there is little evidence from students that this is the case. This paper (...) outlines the use of CAAM as an educational tool within an Economics and Commerce Faculty in a major Australian research university. Evaluation results are provided from students from a CAAM pilot within an upper-level Economics subject. Results indicate promising support for the use of CAAM and its potential for transferability within the disciplines. If shown to be valuable with further studies, CAAM could be included in capstone subjects, allowing computer technology to be utilised in the service of generic skill development. (shrink)

I suggest that the current interest in philosophical counseling is comparable to the situation in the Sixties when many philosophy graduates entertained false hopes of nonacademic philosophical employment. I describe my own experience as a welfare worker, in the course of which my philosophical training proved useful in various ways; I maintain, though, that there was nothing especially philosophical in this. I then consider some ways in which philosophical counseling might be distinctively philosophical. I conclude that philosophical training, as we (...) know it, is in any case inadequate for philosophical counseling and would need to be supplemented by psychological and other training. (shrink)

1. Introduction 2. What honor is 3. Honor in the military 4. The use of robots and the honorableness of the military profession 5. Conclusion.

Medieval and early modern devotional works rarely receive serious treatment from philosophers, even those working in the subfields of philosophy of religion or the history of ideas. In this article, I examine one medieval devotional work in particular—the Middle High German image- and verse-program, Christus und die minnende Seele (CMS)—and I argue that it can plausibly be viewed as a form of medieval public philosophy, one that both exhibited and encouraged philosophical innovation. I address a few objections to my proposal—namely, (...) that CMS is neither public enough nor that it counts as proper philosophy—and I attempt to defend CMS’s public philosophical credentials in light of these objections. I conclude with a brief discussion of how devotional texts like CMS can help us do innovative public philosophy today. (shrink)

Cognitive science is ready for a major reconceptualization. This is not at all because efforts by its practitioners have failed, but rather because so much progress has been made. The need for reconceptualization arises from the fact that this progress has come at greater cost than necessary, largely because of more or less philosophical (at least metatheoretical) straightjackets still worn - whether wittingly or not - by those doing the work. These bonds are extremely hard to break. Even some of (...) those who have directed powerful arguments against them have failed entirely to shake them off. The bonds are often attributed to the work of René Descartes, but they are really much older than that. If even in the present effort, I fail entirely to remove the straightjacket myself (even though I am making every attempt to get it off), this will testify to its tight grip. The straightjacket I am thinking about, of course, is the vague picture of the human situation that imagines centralized, internal minds in control of bodily machines. While almost no one in the contemporary cognitive science arena imagines minds to be the kind of thing Descartes took them to be - instantiations of a unique, fully non-material substance - there is nevertheless a deep resistance, even among the most fervent professed "materialists," to giving up this picture. In what follows, I shall try to offer an approach which on the one hand capitalizes on the excellent progress that has been made in cognitive science in the last few decades, and which on the other hand offers a general approach that may help at some level in the attempt to shake "Cartesian" bonds. The approach, as the alert reader already knows from the title of the essay, is an "ecological" approach. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, Newton used bis famous prism to found the physics of spectral light, thus revolutionising our thinking about colours; more than a hundred years later, Goethe protested against Newton's theory and discovered a number of new prismatic colour phenomena. Did these episodes in the history of science have any influence on the visual arts? For a decade now my visits to art museums have had an agenda: I have been looking for nineteenth-century paintings with certain spectral colour (...) (which will be described in the first half of this paper). While my search has been unsuccessful in traditional Western art, I found what I was looking for in Japa­nese art: in woodblock prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige. This is surprising; little Western science had reached Japan in their time. The second half of the paper pre­sents this riddle, which I am nowhere near solving. Even without a solution, however, a riddle can be instructive. In this case, it may help to bring into focus the fascinating exchange between two distant cultures. Much has been written on the cultural relativ­ity of colour perception, colour systematisation and colour aesthetics; I want to intro­duce a new and so far unknown case that might contribute to this debate - though the debate itself remains beyond the scope of this paper. (shrink)

Cheating is a growing academic and ethical concern in higher education. This article examines the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) generative chatbots for use in education and provides a review of research literature and relevant scholarship concerning the cheating-related issues involved and their implications for pedagogy. The technological “arms race” that involves cheating-detection system developers versus technology savvy students is attracting increased attention to cheating. AI has added new dimensions to academic cheating challenges as students (as well as faculty and (...) staff) can easily access powerful systems for generating content that can be presented in assignments, exams, or published papers as their own. AI methodology is also providing some emerging anti-cheating approaches, including facial recognition and water- marking. This article provides an overview of human/AI collaboration approaches and frames some educational misuses of such AI generative systems as ChatGPT and Bard as forms of “misattributed co-authorship.” As with other kinds of collaborations, the work that students produce with AI assistance can be presented in transparent and straightforward modes or (unfortunately) in opaquer and ethically-problematic ways. However, rather than just for catching or entrapping students, the emerging varieties of technological cheating-detection strategies can be used to assist students in learning how to document and attribute properly their AI-empowered as well as human-human collaborations. Construing misuses of AI generative systems as misattributed co-authorship can recognize the growing capabilities of these tools and how stressing responsible and mindful usage by students can help prepare them for a highly collaborative, AI-saturated future. (shrink)

A publication called Aging in the Social Space is a compilation of studies, which deal with theoretical understanding and empirical solutions, learning about problem spheres, specifying content parallels of social, legal, economic, moral and ethical views on senior issues in society, which are closely related to each other and are interconnected. This publication focus on the case study of Poland. It is supposed to provide a multidimensional view of old age issues and issues related to aging and care for old (...) people in society. We believe that it is natural also to name individual spheres, in which society has some eff ect, either direct or indirect, within issues concerning seniors. Learning about these spheres is the primary prerequisite for successful use of social help to seniors in society. (shrink)

I welcome with great enthusiasm Meling and Scheidegger’s (2023; henceforth “M&S”) timely contribution to advance an enactive approach to psychedelic therapy, especially to the complex causality involved. Their two main research questions concerned:(i) the causal interaction between the psychedelic molecule and brain activity; and (ii) the causal interaction between brain activity and the psychedelic experience. While I largely agree with and celebrate much of what is proposed by M&S, especially their employment of key enactive concepts to advance our understanding of (...) the first research question, in the following, I will present some worries regarding their answers to the second. Although I agree that there is probably a two-way reciprocal relationship between neural activity and experience, I have several points of contention regarding M&S’s proposal. My hope is to stimulate discussion on M&S’s important contribution, and to help advance a much-needed enactive science of psychedelics. (shrink)

We face grave global problems. We urgently need to learn how to tackle them in wiser, more effective, intelligent and humane ways than we have done so far. This requires that universities become devoted to helping humanity acquire the necessary wisdom to perform the task. But at present universities do not even conceive of their role in these terms. The essays of this book consider what needs to change in the university if it is to help humanity acquire the (...) wisdom it so urgently needs. (shrink)

Poorly saturated colors are closer to a pure grey than strongly saturated ones and, therefore, appear less “colorful”. Color saturation is effectively manipulated in the visual arts for balancing conflicting sensations and moods and for inducing the perception of relative distance in the pictorial plane. While perceptual science has proven quite clearly that the luminance contrast of any hue acts as a self-sufficient cue to relative depth in visual images, the role of color saturation in such figure-ground organization (...) has remained unclear. We presented configurations of colored inducers on grey ‘test’ backgrounds to human observers. Luminance and saturation of the inducers was uniform on each trial, but varied across trials. We ran two separate experimental tasks. In the relative background brightness task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the apparent brightness of the grey test background contrasted with, assimilated to, or appeared equal (no effect) to that of a comparison background with the same luminance contrast. Contrast polarity and its interaction with color saturation affected response proportions for contrast, assimilation and no effect. In the figure-ground task, perceptual judgments indicated whether the inducers appeared to lie in front of, behind, or in the same depth with the background. Strongly saturated inducers produced significantly larger proportions of foreground effects indicating that these inducers stand out as figure against the background. Weakly saturated inducers produced significantly larger proportions of background effects, indicating that these inducers are perceived as lying behind the backgrounds. We infer that color saturation modulates figure-ground organization, both directly by determining relative inducer depth, and indirectly, and in interaction with contrast polarity, by affecting apparent background brightness. The results point towards a hitherto undocumented functional role of color saturation in the genesis of form, and in particular figure-ground percepts in the absence of chromatostereopsis. (shrink)