Perceived change in quality of life among chinese canadian seniors: the role of involvement in chinese culture

Although much gerontological literature is focused on subjective well-being, quality of life, and life satisfaction, we know little about this concept in old age among sub-cultural groups. This paper presents empirical data on subjective well-being among Chinese seniors (age 55 and over) living in seven cities in Canada. It asks whether and to what extent traditional Chinese culture, a culture in which seniors have been historically valued as wise and contributing members to be respected, is related to their evaluation of whether or not life has improved in old age. Among a random sample of 2272 Chinese seniors, some but not all aspects of traditional Chinese culture were related to their valuation of old age. In particular, involvement in that traditional culture, return visits to the homeland, immigration due to family reunion, and ancestor worship were significant predictors but differentially depending on whether the overall scale or specific domains within that overall scale was the dependent variable. The fact that differential aspects of traditional culture contribute to a positive experience of aging suggests we must be careful in generalizing to traditional culture. Importantly, ethnocentric beliefs regarding Chinese culture were not related to any domain of quality of life.     

Community,subjectivity, and intersubjectivity

This paper deals with the notions of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and community from several different points of view that include subjective and intersubjective agency, a sense of community, the community as a social institution, and the idea of social justice. The context of these considerations can be found in the Community–Social–Psychological approach to social action as it is often practiced in Latin America. A review of these themes is considered important because different models of community intervention and practice may lead to different expressions of community interaction.     

Art,logotherapy, and the unconscious God

In this article the author outlines how art can be used in Logotherapy and Existenzanalyse to help the client uncover, discover, and make use of the meaning and spiritual potentials in his or her life. In Logotherapy and Existenzanalyse art can be used to help over-come fear of verbal communication, to help overcome fear of the spiritual and meaning potentials in the client's life, and to help the client gain awareness and contact with the unconscious God.     

The Deep Structure of Group Life: Unconscious Dimensions

There is a reconsideration and renaissance of interest in expanded conceptions of unconscious processes as they affect individuals and groups (Grotstein, 1999). Recent focus on social unconscious (Hopper, 1996) and cultural unconscious processes (Henderson, 1988) and the nature of intersubjectivity (Harwood and Pines, 1998) raise questions about the location of group analysis. This paper considers the deep structure of group life by examining four functions of the unconscious: repressive, conservative, creative, and mythopoetic (Ellenberger, 1970). On an individual level of analysis, these functions are equated respectively with formative ideas about the: personal–subjective, social–political, intersubjective–cultural and collective–objective unconscious. Group level analogs, as they develop and affect groups and their members, are explored as synthetic, shared, symbolicy and synchronous unconscious processes.     

Death and the “life review” in Halakhah

Coping with old age involves resolving the task of integrity versus despair, which demands a nondefensive confrontation with the inevitability of death. Halakhah (Jewish ethics) also considered this task critical in later years of life, spoke of death's inevitability, and attempted to discourage denial of death. The Jewish approach seems compatible with Butler's concept of life review as a reconciliation with death and a reintegration of one's identity that occurs throughout later years. While the Eriksonian goal is confronting old age with a certain capacity for wisdom, the rabbis maintained that such wisdom must culminate in the creative act of repentance.     

The drive for meaning in William James' analysis of religious experience

Summary Now that we have looked at the characteristics of mystical experience, we are ready to discuss the assumption made in this paper that mystical experience can be translated into an understanding of integration or the drive for meaning which Fingarette pursues in a much more analytic fashion. Reviewing the conversion process as an integration process we have seen that for the sick-souled, beset with the meaninglessness or melancholy which paralyzes his will, his own awareness of wrong in his situation prevents him from opening up to larger views of reality. But, as James has described, at the same time as the subject is attending so strongly to his own sense of worthlessness, all the while the forces of mere organic ripening within him are going on towards their own prefigured result, and his conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the scenes, which in their way work toward rearrangements. Yet the rearrangements can only come about by obeying the command of Chaung-Tse: Cease striving. The result is self-transformation in reconciling, unifying states. There is achieved a supersensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of consciousness; facts already objectively before us fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our active life.However, James cautions us to realize that the same incursions of the subconscious which produce such reconciling, unifying states can also produce pathological states, a diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down. In such a state the meanings of events become dreadful and the ruling emotion is pessimism. To this possibility James applied the pragmatic test, By their fruits..., and concluded that the mystical experience which brings optimism to the individual is a genuine experience and one which brings truth. In our context then, we would say that real integration brings the subject away from the melancholy and meaninglessness he felt into the genuinely insightful resolution of which Fingarette speaks.Conversion, then, is a process in James's analysis of religious experience analogous to the process of integration and meaning-discovery while mysticism is analogous to the state in which integration or meaning-discovery is achieved. Conversion is climaxed by self-surrender; mysticism is characterized by new determination, self-transformation: two ways of describing an indivisible event. Furthermore, the four characteristics James applies to mysticism are indeed characteristic of the experience of integration.Two other points should be added here which are much in line with James's treatment of experience. In the first place, one of the basic principles of radical empiricism is that not only objects but relations between objects are the subject of experience. Such an experience of relationships, of wholeness, is exactly what characterizes integration. At the same time, the five senses are suspended, and the insight is experienced with such a strong immediacy that it is almost sensed. James refers to this quality of mystical states: The records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them, they are absolutely sensational in their epistemological quality, if I may be pardoned the barbarous expression, - that is, they are face to face presentations of what seems immediately to exist.I am not saying that every integration is a mystical experience. Rather I have been saying that James's discussion of religious experiences such as healthy-minded, sick-souled, melancholy, conversion, and mysticism provide analogues for better understanding the phenomenological processes and characteristics of the drive for meaning and integration which Fingarette analyzes. In fact, the very notion of religion itself for James bears not just an analogous resemblance but perhaps an identification with integration. For in his personal letters James had defined religious experience as Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more home to one. And in Varieties James defines religion as a man's total reaction upon life....; his attitude towards what he felt to be the primal truth.If we look upon this outlook of James toward religion as an exaggeration of the reality of integration, we can follow James to what he perceives as the importance of religion upon an individual's life. The man of religious feeling possesses the excitement of a higher kind of emotion, an enthusiastic temper of espousal in regions where morality strictly so called can at best but bow its head and acquiesce. So we are brought again to the area of creativity in which an individual has experienced the widening of the area of his immediate experience and is re-born in the karmic pattern, a valid pattern for both James and Fingarette. As Fingarette describes it, the converted individual creates values which the dead reality he had previously faced did not possess. The result of the achieved integration is explained by James when referring to religious experience as an excitement of the cheerful, expansive, dynamogenic order which, like any tonic, freshens our vital powers. This emotion overcomes temperamental melancholy [meaninglessness] and imparts endurances to the subject, or a zest, or a meaning, or an enchantment and glory to the common objects of life.We might sum up this discussion not by a criticism of the shortcomings of James's treatment of the religious life, such as his apparent insensitivity to the part played by institutions in the religious experience itself, but rather by underscoring the richness of the phenomenological analysis James has undertaken. James Edie acknowledges that James's studies of religious experience itself rather than of religion. ... are not only more sound phenomenologically than some of the studies which have, under the influence of Husserl, up to now explicitly invoked the phenomenological method, but they are also the first to establish any solid basis for a true phenomenology of religious experience.And John Wild has pointed out the parallel between James's concept of melancholy and Heidegger's concept of anxiety as the genesis of the process of becoming: beginning with the prospect of death and nothingness, the individual gropes toward new birth.As we have seen, then, James's analysis of the varieties of religious experience leads to a fruitful discussion of the psychological processes involved in melancholy and meaninglessness, rearrangement and integration. In all such experiences, a sense of inner unity is reached to which the following words of Fingarette would apply by analogy: The soul-racking death which leads to blissful rebirth is the death of the subjectively experienced, anxiety-generated self perception; it is the emergence into the freedom of introspective self-forgetfulness of the psychically unified self.     

Embeddability,syntax, and semantics in accounts of scientific theories

Recently several philosophers of science have proposed what has come to be known as the semantic account of scientific theories. It is presented as an improvement on the positivist account, which is now called the syntactic account of scientific theories. Bas van Fraassen claims that the syntactic account does not give a satisfactory definition of empirical adequacy and empirical equivalence. He contends that his own semantic account does define these notations acceptably, through the concept of embeddability, a concept which he claims cannot be defined syntactically. Here, I define a syntactic relation which corresponds to the semantic relation of embeddability. I suggest that the critical differences between the positivist account and van Fraassen's account have nothing to do with the distinction between semantics and syntax.     

Objectively reliable subjective probabilities

Subjective Bayesians typically find the following objection difficult to answer: some joint probability measures lead to intuitively irrational inductive behavior, even in the long run. Yet well-motivated ways to restrict the set of reasonable prior joint measures have not been forthcoming. In this paper I propose a way to restrict the set of prior joint probability measures in particular inductive settings. My proposal is the following: where there exists some successful inductive method for getting to the truth in some situation, we ought to employ a (joint) probability measure that is inductively successful in that situation, if such a measure exists. In order to do show that the restriction is possible to meet in a broad class of cases, I prove a Bayesian Completeness Theorem, which says that for any solvable inductive problem of a certain broad type, there exist probability measures that a Bayesian could use to solve the problem. I then briefly compare the merits of my proposal with two other well-known proposals for constraining the class of admissible subjective probability measures, the leave the door ajar condition and the maximize entropy condition.The author owes special thanks to Kevin Kelly, for a number of helpful ideas for the proof of the Bayesian Completeness Theorem, as well as other aspects of the paper. Thanks also to Clark Glymour for some helpful suggestions for improvement of an earlier draft. Part of the work leading to this paper was funded by a Summer Research Grant from the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.     

Global Progress I: Empirical Evidence for ongoing Increase in Quality-of-life

This paper argues that both the relativist and the pessimist critiques of the idea of progress are inadequate. Progress is defined as increase in global quality of life (QOL). Such QOL is intrinsically subjective, but not relative. It can be reliably measured through life satisfaction-type questions. The World Database of Happiness provides extensive data on social, economic and psychological factors that correlate with overall QOL. They include wealth, health, security, knowledge, freedom and equality. Various statistical data suggest that all these QOL indicators have undergone significant improvements during the last half century, in most of the world. This gives strong support to the thesis that progress objectively occurs.     

Implications of Individual Differences in Subjective Happiness for Perceiving,Interpreting, and Thinking About Life Events

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that characteristically happy and unhappy individuals seem to differ in the ways in which they respond to life events and daily situations. This paper reports two questionnaire studies and a laboratory study testing the hypothesis that happy people perceive, interpret, and think about the same events in more positive ways than do unhappy ones. The results of Study 1 showed that students nominated by their peers as very happy reported experiencing similar types of both positive and negative life events, as did peer-nominated unhappy students. However, self-rated happy students tended to think about both types of events more favorably and adaptively—e.g., by seeing humor in adversity and emphasizing recent improvement in their lives. This pattern of results was conceptually replicated in Study 2 using hypothetical events. In Study 3, self-rated happy students interacted with a female confederate in the laboratory, then watched a series of videotapes depicting a fellow (but unfamiliar) student in three different situations. Happy individuals liked the person they met, and recalled her in more favorable terms, more than did unhappy ones. The same pattern of results, albeit weaker, was found for liking of the videotaped target. Implications of our findings for the question of how happiness (or unhappiness) is maintained are discussed.     

Divination, Synchronicity, and Fate

This is an essay in the occult, not occult philosophy but the philosophy of what we usually keep hidden, liminal, on the fringe. Divination can enlighten you, but it works through the shadows and the borderlines. Rooted in our troubles, in what crosses our path, divination seeks its ground in a realm full of spirit. If we were to give this process a motto, it might be C. G. Jung's famous observation that to serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning (CW 13, §55).¹     

Notes on the theology of marriage

The theology of marriage has tended to focus on the establishment and the dissolution of marriages. This is a mistake, for it leaves us with little notion of the day-to-day married life appropriate to our Christian convictions. This situation is the result of two confusions, one about the concepts of love and marriage and one about the interpretative framework in which marriage is understood. In this light five types of marriage theologies are discussed. The claim is made that a theology which sees marriage as a member of the category of special relations, with its central interpretative metaphor, fidelity, not only brings out the proper moral significance of marriage but also offers the most theologically appropriate formulation.Mr. Bondi is a Dissertation Fellow writing on Fidelity and Agape: Special Relations in Christian Ethics in the Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.     

The liar: What paradox?

Most philosophers believe that the Liar Paradox is semantical in character, and arises from difficulties in the predicate true. The author argues that the paradox is pragmatic, not semantic, and arises from violations of essential conditions that define statement-making speech acts. The author shows that his solution to the paradox will not only handle the classical Liar sentences that are necessarily or intrinsically paradoxical, but also sets of Kripke-sentences that are contingently paradoxical.     

Is “some-other-time” sometimes better than “sometime” for proving partial correctness of programs?

The main result of this paper belongs to the field of the comparative study of program verification methods as well as to the field called nonstandard logics of programs. We compare the program verifying powers of various well-known temporal logics of programs, one of which is the Intermittent Assertions Method, denoted as Bur. Bur is based on one of the simplest modal logics called S5 or sometime-logic. We will see that the minor change in this background modal logic increases the program verifying power of Bur. The change can be described either technically as replacing the reflexive version of S5 with an irreflexive version, or intuitively as using the modality some-other-time instead of sometime. Some insights into the nature of computational induction and its variants are also obtained.This project was supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Grant No. 1810.     

Poetry in Existential Psychotherapy with Couples and Families

The use of poetry during the process of existential psychotherapy with couples and families is described and illustrated. In this approach, poems can be utilized to help the couple and/or family notice meaning potentials in the future, actualize and make use of such meaning potentials in the here and now, and re-collect and honor meanings previously actualized and deposited in the past.     

Is the holocaust relevant to sociobiology?

Sociobiologists have emphasized that altruism and benevolent behavior are part of the genetic repertoire of most animals and certainly of man. They have constructed a theory of ethics as a biological phenomenon without reference to the concept of evil. It is concluded here however, that holocaust behavior is not equivalent to the natural manifestation of an incompletely tamed animal flashing its teeth. Biologists have been too rigid in trying to equate ethical behavior with social behavior. The added dimension of ethical behavior is a special kind of sensitivity to the needs of others, just as evil is the total lack of it. The evolution of this moral sense may itself have important selective value for the human species, whose survival depends on creating maximal diversity in its gene pool.     

“Anchor-range” results with “same” and “different” responses and similar and dissimilar stimuli

Summary Blocks of pairs of dissimilar (anchor-like) circles were unexpectedly followed by single pairs of similar circles and vice versa. The dissimilar circles were 3 and 10 mm in diameter, and the similar circles were 3 and 5 mm, 5 and 7 mm, and 7 and 10 mm in diameter. In a second experiment, the dissimilar and similar circles did not overlap in size (e.g., they were 1.5 and 5 mm and 7 and 10 mm, respectively). The same responses to the unexpected same pairs of similar circles were faster than the same responses to the identical pairs in the blocks. In contrast, the different responses to the unexpected different pairs of similar circles were slower than the different responses to the identical pairs in the blocks. Similar stimuli accelerate same responses and slow down different responses. So the time results (and the error results as well) suggest that the context of the block dissimilar circles increased the perceived similarity of the unexpected similar circles. These anchor-range results are not explained by Thurstonian theories, which are based on the absolute properties of stimuli. Instead, they imply that the relation between the similar circles in the context of the relation between the dissimilar circles affected performance.     

Albert Schweitzer and international health

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) was a medical missionary, theologian, philosopher, and musician and the only individual physician to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. His humanitar-ianism had a profound philosophical-religious basis, embodied in the concepts of ethical mysticism and reverence for life. This paper outlines the relevance of Schweitzer's career to medical education and international health. The growing role of Western physicians in international health and in the prevention of nuclear war (and its medical consequences) is consistent with Schweitzer's active and universalist ethical principles aimed at the alleviation of the suffering shared by mankind. The example of Schweitzer and other individual physicians could be used to enhance participation of individual medical students and physicians in international health programs.The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments and suggestions of Dr. James Terry.     

Family coping strategies and the rural Appalachian working poor

Naturalistic research methods were used in this study to collect the voices, ideas, and opinions of rural, working poor, Appalachian families from Southeast Ohio about the stress of poverty in family life and family coping in the face of poverty. This data should be of interest to the professional family therapist who practices with the working poor.