What Can Be Learned from the Arts About Aging?

This brief article examines some of the theoretical questions raised by aesthetics. Paintings have not only form and content, but are underpinned by philosophical principles that connect art to gerontology. We examine specific theoretical messages of a trend in art that have important implications for conceptualizing humans, including their interactions and surroundings. Three artists are used to illustrate this trend: Cezanne, Picasso, and Pollock. These and other artists of this century foster a heightened awareness of humanistic concerns. Caught between abstract reason and expert systems on the one hand, and the life worlds of older people on the other, gerontology finds itself in a place where art can speak to its deeper concerns in unique ways.     

What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

Children's overextensions of spatial language are often taken to reveal spatial biases. However, it is unclear whether extension patterns should be attributed to children's overly general spatial concepts or to a narrower notion of conceptual similarity allowing metaphor‐like extensions. We describe a previously unnoticed extension of spatial expressions and use a novel method to determine its origins. English‐ and Greek‐speaking 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds used containment expressions (e.g., English into, Greek mesa) for events where an object moved into another object but extended such expressions to events where the object moved behind or under another object. The pattern emerged in adult speakers of both languages and also in speakers of 10 additional languages. We conclude that learners do not have an overly general concept of Containment. Nevertheless, children (and adults) perceive similarities across Containment and other types of spatial scenes, even when these similarities are obscured by the conventional forms of the language.     

Helping the Homeless: What About the Spirit of God?

This paper argues that the Holy Spirit is missing from services for the homeless. Spirituality is reviewed as a concept, and it is argued that the transforming Spirit that Paul described is not often present in discussions. Instead, the Social Gospel and Modernism have replaced the role of the Holy Spirit, and people who are homeless are being provided with very limited options to transform their lives and escape the desperation they so often feel.     

Freud was Right… About the Origins of Abnormal Behavior

Freud's psychodynamic theory is predominantly based on case histories of patients who displayed abnormal behavior. From a scientific point of view, Freud's analyses of these cases are unacceptable because the key concepts of his theory cannot be tested empirically. However, in one respect, Freud was totally right: most forms of abnormal behavior originate in childhood. In this paper various factors are discussed that play a role in the etiology of abnormal behavior in children and adolescents. Furthermore, problems are signaled that hinder effective interventions for disordered youths.     

What About the Victim? Neglected Dimensions of the Standing to Blame

The Journal of Ethics - This paper points out neglected considerations about the standing to blame. It starts from the observation that the standing to blame debate largely focusses on factors...     

What Does Diffusion Tensor Imaging Reveal About the Brain and Cognition in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?

Over the past 5 years, Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) has begun to provide new evidence about the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on white matter development. DTI, which examines microstructural tissue integrity, is sensitive to more subtle white matter abnormalities than traditional volumetric MRI methods. Thus far, the available DTI data suggest that white matter microstructural abnormalities fall on a continuum of severity in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Abnormalities are prominent in the corpus callosum, but also evident in major anterior-posterior fiber bundles, corticospinal tracts, and cerebellum. These subtle abnormalities are correlated with neurocognitive deficits, especially in processing speed, non-verbal ability, and executive functioning. Future studies using larger samples, increasingly sophisticated DTI methods, and additional functional MRI connectivity measures will better characterize the full range of abnormalities in FASD. Ultimately, these measures may serve as indices of change in future longitudinal studies and in studies of interventions for FASD.     

What Must Pro-Lifers Believe About the Moral Status of Embryos?

Embryo rescue cases and minimal miscarriage prevention research have been interpreted as showing that even pro-lifers are not really committed to the unborn having the same moral status as the born. I will suggest instead that judgments about embryo rescues are often distorted by triage considerations that reveal nothing about differences in moral status between those saved and those not. I will present metaphysical and ethical considerations – none assuming a difference in moral status – why preventing millions of miscarriages does not warrant the massive redistribution of research funds that would occur to prevent the deaths of equal numbers of humans already born.     

What Can We Learn About Psychopathic Offenders by Studying Their Communication? A Review of the Literature

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Experts have long warned against psychotherapy with psychopathic offenders out of a fear that they will beguile therapists into believing they have been...     

End of Life Pediatric Research: What About the Ethics?

Clinical trials are required in order to develop new treatments and improve both patient life expectancy and quality of life. In this respect the last 10 years proved their efficiency. However clinical research shows one of the most difficult dilemmas from an ethical point of view. Patients included in clinical trials are submitted to known and unknown risks and hazards, but rarely benefit from the results. This is even more evident when clinical trials use children who are terminally ill. The core consideration becomes how far should we go with research when considering the child best interest.     

Can Studies of Autism Teach us About Consciousness of the Physical and the Mental?

Abstract

Most scientists and theorists concerned with the problem of consciousness focus on our consciousness of the physical world (our sensations, feelings, and awareness). In this paper I consider our consciousness of the mental world (our thoughts about thoughts, intentions, wishes, and emotions).The argument is made that these are two distinct forms of consciousness, the evidence for this deriving from studies of autism. Autism is a severe childhood psychiatric condition in which individuals may be conscious of the physical world but not of the mental world. Relevant experimental evidence is described, including some recent neuroimaging studies pointing towards the neural basis of our consciousness of the mental.     

Can the Medical Resonance Therapy Music affect autonomous innervation of cerebral arteries?

The purpose of this investigation was to study the effects of Medical Resonance Therapy Music (MRT-Music) upon autonomous innervation of cerebral arteries by examining slow spontaneous oscillations of cerebral blood flow (SSO) using transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD). TCD detects SSO with 3-9 cycles per minute (M-waves) and 0.5-2 cycles per minute (B-waves). The SSO are caused by rhythmic diameter changes of the medium and small cerebral arteries. Six patients aged 24-65 years suffering from tension headache were treated with MRT-Music. Twelve additional patients were examined with TCD only to register SSO for further spectral analysis. After fast Fourier transformation four groups of peaks were registered on the SSO spectra, divided into four rhythms: A. 0.0-0.02 Hz, B. 0.02-0.033 Hz, C. 0.06-0.09 Hz, D. 0.09-0.15 Hz and an intermediate diapason of 0.034-0.059 Hz. Spectral analysis of the SSO showed changes between initial and final amplitude peaks in all patients. In contrast to A-, B-and D-rhythms, the reduction of peaks in the C-diapason was statistically significant (31-60%, P 3D0.04, CI 3D95%) for patients treated with MRT-Music. All patients treated with the MRT-Music reported a relief of headache while and after treatment. CONCLUSION: SSO may represent an equilibrium in autonomous innervation of the cerebral arteries. The MRT-Music affects the functioning of the brain structures concerning autonomous nervous system and works as a non-chemical sympatholythic. Registration of the SSO is a useful tool to prove an influence of the MRT-Music upon the autonomous regulation of cerebral vessels.     

What Are Emotions About?

This paper discusses the interrelations between three aspects of human emotions: their intentionality, their expressivity and their moral significance. It distinguishes three kinds of philosophical views of emotions: the cognitivist (classically held by the Stoics), the emotivist which reduces emotions to non-intentional bodily sensations and physiological states, and the moral phenomenologist , the latter being held by Annette Baier, whose work is the focus of the discussion. Her view, which represents an original development of ideas found in Descartes and Hume, avoids the reductionism of congitivist and emotivist accounts. The paper gives special attention to her notion of 'deep'objects of emotions and to her account of the expressivity of emotions, arguing that while the first is problematic, the second is a significant contribution to our understanding of the role of emotions in our moral lives.     

What Was the Syntax‐Semantics Debate in the Philosophy of Science About?

The debate between critics of syntactic and semantic approaches to the formalization of scientific theories has been going on for over 50 years. I structure the debate in light of a recent exchange between Hans Halvorson, Clark Glymour, and Bas van Fraassen and argue that the only remaining disagreement concerns the alleged difference in the dependence of syntactic and semantic approaches on languages of predicate logic. This difference turns out to be illusory.