The Individuation of Actions

I argue against a view of the individuation of actions endorsed most notably by Hornsby and Davidson. This is the view that in, for example, Anscombe's case of the pumping man, we have a single action which can be described, variously, as a pumping, a poisoning and so on. I argue that, even in the area of the standard arguments against this view, such as that based on the logic of 'by' and the argument from temporal dimensions, the case against the Davidson-Hornsby view has not been made as strong as it ought to have been. I show how those standard arguments can be strengthened; and I argue that the principal considerations adduced in support of the view do not in fact lend it the support that they have been widely thought to lend it. I conclude that the view should be rejected.     

Actions in Slow Motion: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections on Temporality in Actions and Intersubjective Understanding

This article examines the connection between actions, temporality, and media-based observation. Slow motion technology is currently being used especially in sports to examine and evaluate athletes’ actions more precisely in order to identify potential infringements of rules. Starting with a phenomenological perspective, this article engages in a critical assessment of the degree to which the intentions underlying athletes’ actions become clearer if their actions are slowed down using slow motion. It transpires that a more in-depth understanding is not possible because the process of time-stretching using media technology tends to obscure intersubjective understanding. Nevertheless, the use of different playback speeds does increase observers’ sensitivity to the temporality of action and observation. This is particularly the case when greater emphasis is placed on the body and its role in the formation and carrying out of intentions. With the phenomenological view and in special consideration of the body and the subjective intentionality, the paper contributes to a discussion about the connection of time and (inter-)action already led in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. These findings mark a contribution to empirical social research as well, which is increasingly using video material in action analysis and should take slow motion as a possible augmented but also manipulated access to actions into account adequately. To this end, this article suggests a method for identifying the merits and demerits of using slow motion to analyse actions, and discusses the methodological implications of temporality in observation.

     

Individuation of women

The period between 30 and 40 years of age is probably the normal time developmentally for women to complete the individuation from their mothers. Because of the change of object from the primary object (mother) to the secondary object (father), as well as the lack of a narcissistic triumph over the mother comparable to that of a boy's penis, a woman's psychosexual development is more difficult and prolonged. The girl must resolve her attachment to the omnipotent mother and work through her Oedipus complex by deidealizing the father, recognizing that her anal-sadistic impulses do not castrate men, before she can completely individuate. Only then does she become an autonomous, complete woman. Passive-dependency in women is not a mature adult state, as several authors hold, but a partially resolved individuation from the mother, now transferred onto men. Becoming attached to men, idealizing them, they devalue themselves in order not to regress to the omnipotent preoedipal mother. Adulthood (30-40 years) is the time when this resolution can occur because there have been sufficient narcissistic achievements for the woman, enough distance from the actual preoedipal mother, and an opportunity to observe that their own anal-sadistic impulses toward men have not castrated or destroyed them, as well as an opportunity to see men as fallible and human. This is a reason so many woman return to school and begin careers in their 30s. This incomplete resolution is also a reason for fewer original discoveries and creative contributions by women than by men during the course of history. As society changes, this special difficulty for women to individuate may change as well, but I would predict that such change would not be as much as one might expect because of the unique psychosexual development of women.     

Individuation and paideia

This article attempts to discover an important historical precedent for the concept of individuation in the idea of paideia , which today, mistakenly, is often understood to have been simply the form of 'education' practised in ancient Greece. Paideia , however, was not limited to the instruction of youth and was based on no fixed programmes. It was conceived as continuing throughout the life of the individual, and as a development of natural, in-born potential. Paideia articulated a notion of 'inner culture', or cultura animi , which has since receded from Western civilization, with its anti-psychological emphasis on progress, specialization and extra-version, and with its notion that a civilization's 'culture' is primarily defined by its social structures and material tools. Present-day interest in the Jungian concept of individuation can thus be seen as a return of the repressed. An analysis of the Telemachy - the opening cantos of the Odyssey - in which Odysseus' son, Telemachus, accomplishes his passage to adulthood, reveals the need for the realization of natural potential to be an innate and archetypal ideal. Homeric poetry is then seen to have furnished a unified canon for the whole human being, whereas the subsequent course of European civilization, starting with the Greek Sophists and an ever more specialized notion of philosophy, is seen to have fostered a unilateral mode of maturation. It is argued that nostalgia for paideia indirectly reasserts itself through the widespread cultural interest in the idea of individuation.     

Individuation in Marriage

This is an outline of marriage as a relationship which may facilitate continued personal growth and individuation (Jung's concept for the process of selfhood). Seeing marriage, including their own, in this fashion guides the authors in psychotherapy of marital partners and of the relationship.     

Individuation and relationship violence

Abstract

This paper examines relationship dynamics of couples in which the man has been violent toward the woman. The thesis offered here, from a systemic perspective, is that violence in intimate couple relationships is, in part, a distance-regulating mechanism that maintains a balance between separateness and connectedness in the relationship. The individual developmental process that allows a balance to be maintained without violence or other “distance regulators” is individuation. Some of the theoretical positions taken by previous authors that clarify the connection between individuation and relationship dynamics are presented. Next, the link between lack of individuation and relationship violence is explored using the work of other scholars to support our thesis and the “voices” of women who have experienced date violence. The “voices” come from a multiple case study using qualitative methods and analyses conducted by the second author. Finally, therapeutic intervention when relationship violence is viewed from the perspective suggested here is discussed.     

Concepts and Epistemic Individuation

Christopher Peacocke has presented an original version of the perennial philosophical thesis that we can gain substantive metaphysical and epistemological insight from an analysis of our concepts. Peacocke's innovation is to look at how concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, which he believes can be specified in terms of conditions in which certain propositions containing those concepts are accepted. The ability to provide such insight is one of Peacocke's major arguments for his theory of concepts. I will critically examine this "fruitfulness" argument by looking at one philosophical problem Peacocke uses his theory to solve and treats in depth.
Peacocke (1999, 2001) defines what he calls the "Integration Challenge." The challenge is to integrate our metaphysics with our epistemology by showing that they are mutually acceptable. Peacocke's key conclusion is that the Integration Challenge can be met for "epistemically individuated concepts."A good theory of content, he believes, will close the apparent gap between an account of truth for any given subject matter and an overall account of knowledge. I shall argue that there are no epistemically individuated concepts, and shall critically analyze Peacocke's arguments for their existence. I will suggest more generally that the possession conditions of concepts and their principles of individuation shed little light on the epistemology or metaphysics of things other than concepts. My broader goal is to shed light on what concepts are by showing that they are more fundamental than the sorts of cognitive and epistemic factors a leading theory uses to define them.¹     

人工全膝关节置换术后持续被动运动的早期临床效果研究

探讨持续被动运动用于人工全膝关节置换术后的早期疗效。自2008年至2010年我科共完成人工全膝关节置换术36例（43膝）,将全部病例随机分为2组,A组术后单纯应用物理治疗及自身锻炼,B组采用持续被动锻炼加主动锻炼。观察术后12小时、24小时引流量,术后1周、2周膝关节主动活动范围,切口拆线时间,患者平均住院时间。术后2...