What does the child analyst bring to Jungian thought?

The author wants to show the influence that the historical acknowledgement of child therapy at the Jerusalem IAAP Congress in 1983 has had today on the Jungian world, especially on the clinical approach to their patients by analysts working only with adult patients. If her conclusions do not allow her to dissociate the strong influence on psychoanalysis of contemporary research on attachment theory and mother-child relationship from a specific Jungian child therapists' perspective, she points out, through three examples from Jungian literature, how the need for a metapsychology of development and the study of primary and personal aspects of the patient's life are explicit in the work and research of analysts working with adults.     

`Funda-Mentality': is the conscious mind subtly linked to a basic level of the universe?

Age-old battle lines over the puzzling nature of mental experience are shaping a modern resurgence in the study of consciousness. On one side are the long-dominant `physicalists' who view consciousness as an emergent property of the brain's neural networks. On the alternative, rebellious side are those who see a necessary added ingredient: proto-conscious experience intrinsic to reality, perhaps understandable through modern physics (panpsychists, pan-experientialists, `funda-mentalists'). It is argued here that the physicalist premise alone is unable to solve completely the difficult issues of consciousness and that to do so will require supplemental panpsychist/pan-experiential philosophy expressed in modern physics. In one scheme proto-conscious experience is a basic property of physical reality accessible to a quantum process associated with brain activity. The proposed process is Roger Penrose's `objective reduction' (OR), a self-organizing `collapse' of the quantum wave function related to instability at the most basic level of space-time geometry. In the Penrose-Hameroff model of `orchestrated objective reduction' (Orch OR), OR quantum computation occurs in cytoskeletal microtubules within the brain's neurons. The basic thesis is that consciousness involves brain activities coupled to self-organizing ripples in fundamental reality.     

What is philosophy as a way of life? Why philosophy as a way of life?

Despite a recent surge of interest in philosophy as a way of life, it is not clear what it might mean for philosophy to guide one's life, or how a “philosophical” way of life might differ from a life guided by religion, tradition, or some other source. We argue against John Cooper that spiritual exercises figure crucially in the idea of philosophy as a way of life—not just in the ancient world but also today, at least if the idea is to be viable. In order to make the case we attempt to clarify the nature of spiritual exercises, and to explore a number of fundamental questions, such as “What role does reason have in helping us to live well?” Here we distinguish between the discerning and motivational powers of reason, and argue that both elements have limitations as guides to living well.     

What is a Natural Conception of the World?

Continental philosophers such as Heidegger and Nicolai Hartmann and analytic philosophers such as Ryle, Strawson, and Jennifer Hornsby may be interpreted as using competing intellectual strategies within the framework of one and the same research programme, the programme of developing a natural conception of the world. They all argue that the Manifest Image of the world (to use Sellars's terminology) is compatible with, or even more fundamental than, the Scientific Image. A comparative examination of these strategies shows that Hartmann's strategy of stratification is superior to those of Heidegger, Ryle, and Strawson.     

What happens to an individual visual working memory representation when it is interrupted?

This study tested the hypothesis that even the simplest cognitive tasks require the storage of information in working memory (WM), distorting any information that was previously stored in WM. Experiment 1 tested this hypothesis by requiring observers to perform a simple letter discrimination task while they were holding a single orientation in WM. We predicted that performing the task on the interposed letter stimulus would cause the orientation memory to become less precise and more categorical compared to when the letter was absent or when it was present but could be ignored. This prediction was confirmed. Experiment 2 tested the modality specificity of this effect by replacing the visual letter discrimination task with an auditory pitch discrimination task. Unlike the interposed visual stimulus, the interposed auditory stimulus produced little or no disruption of WM, consistent with the use of modality‐specific representations. Thus, performing a simple visual discrimination task, but not a simple auditory discrimination task, distorts information about a single feature being maintained in visual WM. We suggest that the interposed task eliminates information stored within the focus of attention, leaving behind a WM representation outside the focus of attention that is relatively imprecise and categorical.     

What is the relationship between ideas in the human mind and ideas in the mind of God for Spinoza?

The relation between ideas in the human mind and ideas in the mind of God in Spinoza is problematic because it is often expressed in obscure language and because Spinoza seems to be making puzzling and contradictory statements about it. I try to eliminate the problem by going from the idea that God has of himself to his idea of the essence and existence of the human mind and the human body. I then go from the idea of the essence of the human mind to the idea of the essence of other things, including God.     

What is a writing group? Dilemmas of the leader

A writing group can serve to reinforce literary and therapeutic goals. The model outlined here assumes a leader with literary and clinical training, including expertise in group dynamics. The group format is adapted to support exploration of the writer's main problem, the absence of the reader at the moment of writing. The group modifies the writer's "mythical" reader through member interactions with writer and writing. Giving and receiving feedback are central to the group process. The leader's dilemma in a bifocal form like this is to know when and how far to interpret group members' psychological issues. The best rule is to interpret "toward" the group (i.e., to bring up material that can be safely and readily processed there), but to be cautious about interpretation of patterns of early character formation.     

What does a compound letter tell the psychologist's mind?

The paradigm based on using compound stimuli for studying global and local processing is revisited. Noting that not all researchers employ compound stimuli for the same purpose, the issue of its purpose is discussed. It is argued that the paradigm is pertinent for examining at least three notions--formation preference, global addressability, and within-object global precedence. It is suggested that findings in the paradigm are accommodated well by a disjunction of those three perceptual dispositions. A number of further issues associated with the interpretation of findings obtained with it are examined as well. An experimental study is reported that is meant to examine one such issue--a possible artifact putatively introduced by the special attribute of element homogeneity characteristic of compound stimuli. Seven experiments were used to examine to what extent, if at all, global advantage observed in compound stimulus paradigms depends on element heterogeneity. Across those experiments, heterogeneity did not have any effect that could be interpreted as suggesting that the paradigm is biased in favor of the global structure due to element homogeneity.     

What is the moral basis of the authority of family members to act as surrogates for incompetent patients?

...The authority of family members should be understood as presumptive; that is, there is a moral presumption that a close family member should serve as surrogate for an incompetent patient. That presumption can be overcome or rebutted in a particular case, either when there is sufficient evidence that the usual reasons supporting this presumption do not hold or when the surrogate's decision exceeds appropriate limits of surrogates' decision-making discretion. In order to clarify these hard cases and appropriate public policy, we need a much deeper and more complex analysis than either the conventional view, or the alternative account that Pearlman and colleagues provide. I have sought here only to point toward some of the other grounds that a full account of family members' authority as surrogates would have to develop and explore in much more detail....     

The neural substrate for dreaming: is it a subsystem of the default network?

Building on the content, developmental, and neurological evidence that there are numerous parallels between waking cognition and dreaming, this article argues that the likely neural substrate that supports dreaming, which was discovered through converging lesion and neuroimaging studies, may be a subsystem of the waking default network, which is active during mind wandering, daydreaming, and simulation. Support for this hypothesis would strengthen the case for a more general neurocognitive theory of dreaming that starts with established findings and concepts derived from studies of waking cognition and neurocognition. If this theory is correct, then dreaming may be the quintessential cognitive simulation because it is often highly complex, often includes a vivid sensory environment, unfolds over a duration of a few minutes to a half hour, and is usually experienced as real while it is happening.     

What is told when the story is retold? Consistency of victimization reports in psychiatric patients

The use of retrospective self‐reports is a major methodological concern when ascertaining the occurrence of victimization experiences, with additional concerns when assessing psychiatric patients. The test for consistency can overcome some of these concerns, increasing the confidence in the information reported. Our aim was twofold: (1) to know the consistency of victimization reports; and (2) to test the role of changes on emotional distress in predicting report discrepancies, in a sample of 34 adult psychiatric patients. Participants were assessed twice, with a year interval. Sexual abuse was the experience that presented the higher level of consistency for childhood victimization, while assault with a weapon had the higher consistency level for adolescent and adult victimization. We found that increases on emotional distress predicted report discrepancies, and more specifically, increases in the report of victimization. Our results displayed acceptable consistency levels, suggesting some stability in the reporting of victimization over time. Considering that inconsistencies tended either to increases and decreases in the reporting of victimization, it would be important to consider the impact of such experiences when intervening with psychiatric patients.     

What is the Right to Exclude Immigrants?

It is normally taken for granted that states have a right to control immigration into their territory. When immigration is raised as a normative issue two questions become salient, one about what the right to exclude is, and one about whether and how it might be justified. This paper considers the first question. The paper starts by noting that standard debates about immigration have not addressed what the right to exclude is. Standard debates about immigration furthermore tend to result either in fairly strong cases for open borders or in denials that considerations of justice apply to immigration at all, which results in state discretion positions. This state of debate is both theoretically unsatisfactory and normatively implausible. The paper therefore explores an alternative approach to the right to exclude immigrants from the perspective of recent debates about the territorial rights of states. The right to exclude claimed by states is analysed and it is shown to differ both conceptually and normatively from rights to impose political authority within a territory. The paper finally indicates how this analysis might broaden the focus of debates about immigration and suggest alternative regimes of migration regulation the possibility of which is obscured by traditional justice approaches.     

What is the point of helping?

Philosophical Studies - In some cases, a group of people can bring about a morally bad outcome despite each person’s individual act making no difference with respect to bringing that outcome...     

What is the Point of Sufficiency?

Telic sufficientarians hold that there is something special about a certain threshold level such that benefiting people below it, or raising them above it, makes an outcome better in at least one respect. The article investigates what fundamental value might ground that view. The aim is to demonstrate that sufficientarianism, at least on this telic version, is groundless and as such indefensible. The argument is advanced in three steps: first, it is shown that sufficientarianism cannot be grounded in a personal value. Neither, secondly, is it committed to the person‐affecting view, the view that says that nothing can be better (worse) if there is no one for whom it is better (worse). This, in itself, is of interest because some sufficientarians reject egalitarianism precisely for its alleged incompatibility with the person‐affecting view. Sufficientarians' disavowal of the person‐affecting view implies that their view, similarly to egalitarianism (and, perhaps less famously, prioritarianism), must be anchored in some impersonal value. But crucially, and this is the third step of the argument, there is no apparent value that can fit that role. We must conclude, then, that telic sufficientarianism is groundless.     

What is an organ? Heidegger and the phenomenology of organ transplantation

This paper investigates the question of what an organ is from a phenomenological perspective. Proceeding from the phenomenology of being-in-the-world developed by Heidegger in Being and Time and subsequent works, it compares the being of the organ with the being of the tool. It attempts to display similarities and differences between the embodied nature of the organs and the way tools of the world are handled. It explicates the way tools belong to the totalities of things of the world that are ready to use and the way organs belong to the totality of a bodily being able to be in this very world. In so doing, the paper argues that while the organ is in some respects similar to a bodily tool, this tool is nonetheless different from the tools of the world in being tied to the organism as a whole, which offers the founding ground of the being of the person. However, from a phenomenological point of view, the line between organs and tools cannot simply be drawn by determining what is inside and outside the physiological borders of the organism. We have, from the beginning of history, integrated technological devices (tools) in our being-in-the-world in ways that make them parts of ourselves rather than parts of the world (more organ- than tool-like), and also, more recently, have started to make our organs more tool-like by visualising, moving, manipulating, and controlling them through medical technology. In this paper, Heidegger’s analysis of organ, tool, and world-making is confronted with this development brought about by contemporary medical technology. It is argued that this development has, to a large extent, changed the phenomenology of the organ in making our bodies more similar to machines with parts that have certain functions and that can be exchanged. This development harbours the threat of instrumentalising our bodily being but also the possibility of curing or alleviating suffering brought about by diseases which disturb and destroy the normal functioning of our organs.     

What is the probability of replicating a statistically significant effect?

If an initial experiment produces a statistically significant effect, what is the probability that this effect will be replicated in a follow-up experiment? I argue that this seemingly fundamental question can be interpreted in two very different ways and that its answer is, in practice, virtually unknowable under either interpretation. Although the data from an initial experiment can be used to estimate one type of replication probability, this estimate will rarely be precise enough to be of any use. The other type of replication probability is also unknowable, because it depends on unknown aspects of the research context. Thus, although it would be nice to know the probability of replicating a significant effect, researchers must accept the fact that they generally cannot determine this information, whichever type of replication probability they seek.