Peter Van Inwagen on Material Beings

Peter van Inwagen's book Material Beings is centered on the special composition question: the question of when some simples constitute a complex object. Van Inwagen's answer to this question is that simples only constitute a complex object when they constitute an organism. I argue that van Inwagen's reasoning in favor of this conclusion is unconvincing, and also that the significance of the special composition question itself is doubtful.     

Peter Singer and Non-Voluntary 'Euthanasia': tripping down the slippery slope

ABSTRACT This article discusses the nature of euthanasia, and the way in which redevelopment of the concept of euthanasia in some influential recent philosophical writing has led to morally less discriminating killing/letting die/not saving being misdescribed as euthanasia. Peter Singer's defence of non-voluntary 'euthanasia'of defective infants in his influential book Practical Ethics is critically evaluated. We argue that Singer's pseudo-euthanasia arguments in Practical Ethics are unsatisfactory as approaches to determining the legitimacy of killing, and that these arguments present a total utilitarian improvement policy—not a case for non-voluntary euthanasia.     

Canada is a real country: A reply to Peter Li

As part of his critique of those who support integration of immigrants into Canadian society, Peter Li appears to accuse this author of favouring European immigrants as opposed to those from other regions. Such an implication is insulting and false. My book, Who Gets In, argues that Canadian multiculturalism is more rhetoric than reality and gives concrete examples of why this is so. Li, on the other hand, discusses multiculturalism only in generalities without defining it. He argues for a more “inclusive” approach but fails to explain what is to be included. Moreover, he does not concede the existence of any Canadian values that must be respected by all.     

Peter McHugh: A Memoir of the Passion of Theorizing

This paper is a personal and theoretic commemoration of Peter McHugh’s life and commitment through the prism of the writer’s discovery of, and involvement in, the effort from the late 1960s to diagnose and respond to “the failure of positivism” in sociology. Peter’s work (with that of Alan Blum) formed a central component of that effort. I trace the genealogy of Peter’s teaching and conversational practice, to his roots in ethnomethodology and his involvement with Harold Garfinkel. This is followed by an account of how Peter developed and transformed the ethnomethodological impulse, from the “uninterestingly” enforceable towards the invitation to share in the discovery and reconstruction of interest. The paper concludes by situating the time that is its focus, acknowledging the depth of Peter’s impact, and opening for future engagement the subsequent development of his work, in the context of various debates and questions (briefly alluded to) that form a part of the life of theorizing in the early twenty-first century.     

THE FUTURE OF THE BUDDHIST PAST: A RESPONSE TO THE READERS

I respond to comments offered by Peter Harrison and Thupten Jinpa on my book Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008). I report briefly on the reception of the book thus far and provide a summary of its contents before responding individually to the essays of Harrison and Jinpa.     

The Fictitious Audience of 1 Peter

Recent scholarship has argued that Simon Peter is not the author of 1 Peter, whilst maintaining that the addressees in 1:1 are the real recipients of the letter. We contend that both the stated author and the stated audience are part of the author’s deception. We propose instead that the author may have simply argued that this text was an older letter from Peter. This proposal is consistent with the widely-held view that pseudepigraphical letters were not knowingly accepted in early Christian circles, as well as the ancient tradition that Peter was believed to be the real author of the text and offers a simple solution as to how the letter escaped the scrutiny that came with pseudepigraphical works. If this thesis is followed, scholarship concerned with uncovering the socio-economic status of the Christians in Asia Minor based on this text is therefore misguided.     

Peter Heller's a Child Analysis with Anna Freud: the significance of the case for the history of child psychoanalysis

A Child Analysis with Anna Freud, a collection of Anna Freud's detailed case notes of her treatment of the young Peter Heller between 1929 and 1932, was first published in English in 1990. Not only does this work give us direct access to Anna Freud's ways of thinking and working at a crucial period in the early history of child analysis; it is also one of the few records of an adult reflecting in depth on the experience of being in analysis as a child. Yet to date this work has received little attention in the psychoanalytic literature. In an attempt to redress this neglect, the Heller case study is placed in the context of Anna Freud's emerging ideas about child analysis. In particular, its significance in the development of her psychoanalytic thinking is investigated in the light of her 1927 book, The Technique of Child Analysis.     

The case of Peter and Susan: The psychotherapeutic treatment of an acute psychotic episode at the Arbours Crisis Centre

The case of Peter and Susan is an example of multiple crisis intervention at the Arbours Crisis Centre in London. Both were treated by psychoanalytic psychotherapy together with intensive interpersonal support in a live-in therapeutic milieu, with successful results.An extended discussion about the work of the Arbours Association in London will be published by Human Sciences Press as a chapter entitled, An Alternative Sanctuary: The Arbours Crisis Centre, in the forthcoming book,Healing Human Systems, edited by U. Reuveni and R. & J. Speck. For further information about the Centre write to: The Arbours Association, 41a Western Park, London N.8.     

“Take Your Pill Dear”: Kate Millett and Psychiatry's Dark Side

Kate Miliett's book, The Loony-Bin Trip, is an extraordinary account of her personal experience with involuntary psychiatric commitment. The drama of her conflict with professional psychiatry is so tense, so enraging, that one is likely to find oneself having to set the book aside from time to time just to calm down.     

Studying Sociology with Peter McHugh

Peter McHugh’s influence on those of us who studied and worked with him as part of York University’s graduate sociology programme in Toronto from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s, while lasting and undeniable, is not necessarily immediately apparent nor easily articulated. What follows is a brief reflection on how this difficulty can be understood as integral to Peter McHugh’s unique contribution both to those of us fortunate enough to have studied with him, and more broadly, to the discipline of sociology itself.     

Wendy's Story: analytic perspectives on J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy

This essay is a study of Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie's 1911 novel based on his 1904 play Peter Pan. Utilizing Jungian and Kleinian theory, the tale is treated as an expression of Wendy's psyche in transformation, tracking her passage into puberty and the transition from omnipotent narcissism towards depressive concern which accompanied her differentiation from idealized identification with her mother. The resultant changes in Wendy's parental imagos are given particular emphasis, especially the moves towards the integration of her split paternal imago, symbolized by Peter Pan and Captain Hook. This enables Wendy's fuller engagement with the Oedipus situation, resulting in her assimilation of unconscious aspects of the instinctual feminine. In turn, she opens to a conception of parental intercourse which is more reality orientated and allows an internal sense of coupledom vital for her own capacity to form adult relationships.     

与彼得·辛格的对话

对话的主题涉及辛格对马克思、全球伦理、道德责任、动物解放、伦理思维中的直觉层次与批判层次以及伦理的客观性问题。辛格哲学的特点不仅在于他始终不懈地将伦理的思维与减少痛苦与苦难的价值付诸行动,而且也在于他拓宽伦理思维的能力。辛格博采生物学、历史学、人类学、经济学以及博弈论研究成果,丰富并阐明了伦理理论与实践何以可以被现实赋予活力。当我们转向辛格的哲学时,我们会发现一种伦理的生活方式:不仅仅为此刻活着,也不仅仅根据个人喜好活着,而是去过一种具有更广意义的生活,它要求献身于所有有感受能力的生命的福祉和环境保护之中。     

Language‐Games and Relativism: On Cora Diamond's Reading of Peter Winch

We will look critically at three essays by Cora Diamond concerning Peter Winch's views on the possibility of communication and criticism between language‐games. We briefly present our understanding of Winch's approach to philosophy. Then, we argue that Diamond misidentifies Winch's views, taking them to imply language‐game relativism or linguistic idealism. When she does raise valid criticisms against language‐game relativism, her critical points mainly coincide with things that Winch has already stressed in his own work. That leaves us with the question what their real disagreement amounts to. Finally, we suggest that at the bottom of Diamond's objections lies her failure to appreciate Winch's insights about the place of logic in human intercourse.     

Peter Winch on ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ Reasoning

Peter Winch often returned to questions about the nature of logic. In the context of his work on Wittgenstein and political philosophy in the 1990s, Winch described a contrast between ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Socratic’ reasoning. Aristotelian conceptions of reasoning, attributed to Frege and Russell, would see logic as a formal science and rationality as consistency with pre‐existent rules of inference. The Socratic conception, attributed to Wittgenstein, understands rational argument as a form of socially embedded dialogue that involves moral relationships and a dimension of depth. Rational persuasion may also involve use of persuasive images and examples.     

Response to Peter Fonagy

Peter Fonagy highlights the therapeutic efficacy of new experience, 'a way of being with the other', while the author gives priority to interpretation, insight into and the working through of unconscious conflict. The recovery of the repressed memories and fantasies of childhood is now an intermediate goal of psychoanalysis, largely superseded by transference interpretation and genetic reconstruction. Transference, like symptoms, is a return of the repressed. The author believes Fonagy's theoretical and technical focus on the non-conscious, rather than the dynamic unconscious, devalues the persisting influence and pathogenic significance of the infantile unconscious.     

Against Theodicy: A Response to Peter Forrest

In responding to Peter Forrest’s defence of ‘tough-minded theodicy’, I point to some problematic features of theodicies of this sort, in particular their commitment to an anthropomorphic conception of God which tends to assimilate the Creator to the creaturely and so diminishes the otherness and mystery of God. This remains the case, I argue, even granted Forrest’s view that God may have a very different kind of morality from the one we mortals are subject to.     

Marsilius of Padua and Peter of Abano: the scientific foundations of law-making in Defensor Pacis

This article shows that a forgotten source of Marsilius’ scientia of law-making in the Defensor Pacis is the Lucidator, the main astrological work of Peter of Abano. A compared analysis of these two works demonstrates that the theories of experientia and scientia that Marsilius considers necessary to make laws in the first dictio of the Defensor Pacis entirely draw on Peter of Abano’s views on the epistemological status of ‘the science of the stars’. It is shown that the purpose of Marsilius’ reinstatement of Peter of Abano’s theory of scientia is to build a science of law-making that does not need natural law and is based on experience and certain demonstrations.     

The making of contemporary American psychiatry, part 1: patients, treatments, and therapeutic rationales before and after World War II

This article, the 1st in a 2-part series, uses patient records from California's Stockton State Hospital to unearth the midcentury roots of contemporary American psychiatry. These patient records allow the authors to examine 2 transformations: the post-World War II expansion of psychiatry to include the diagnosis and treatment not only of psychotic patients but also of nonpsychotic patients suffering from problems of everyday living, and the 1950s introduction of the first psychotropic drugs, which cemented the medical status of these new disorders, thus linking a new therapeutic rationale to biological understandings of disease. These transformations laid the groundwork for a contemporary psychiatry characterized by voluntary outpatient care, pharmacological treatment of a wide range of behaviors and distress, and a doctor-patient relationship and cultural acceptance of disease that allow psychiatric patients to identify themselves as consumers.     

Improving Financial Inclusion through Communal Financial Orientation: How Financial Service Providers Can Better Engage Consumers in Banking Deserts

Banking deserts, vulnerable communities that lack access to mainstream banks, represent a serious societal problem. Mainstream banks successfully entering banking deserts can help to assuage this problem. Drawing from research on the psychological consequences of poverty, we propose that mainstream banks can more successfully operate in banking deserts by increasing consumers’ perception of communal financial orientation as a bank benefit (i.e., consumers’ perception that engaging with the bank is beneficial for their community's well‐being). Two field studies, comparing customers of a credit union who live in a banking desert and those who do not, show that the perception of communal financial orientation as a bank benefit increases banking‐desert consumers’ beliefs that engaging with the credit union is beneficial and increases their likelihood of patronizing and recommending it; consumers living outside banking deserts do not display these effects. These findings provide novel insights into psychological mechanisms distinctly associated with banking‐desert consumers and establish the importance of communal financial orientation. This is a win‐win proposal for under‐served communities and financial service providers because it helps both improve financial inclusion and increase the viability of serving banking deserts.     

Evolutionäre Psychiatrie

In contrast to mainstream psychiatry which mainly focuses on the proximate causes of human behavior, evolutionary psychiatry tries to elucidate the ultimate causes of the systems involved in generating specific behavioral patterns. Thus, it is in contradiction to the tabula-rasa model commonly used in social sciences. Using this explanatory approach, it is shown that behavioral sciences like human ethology initiated by K. Lorenz and I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt provide an important scientific basis for modern psychiatry.