Psychotherapy and its alternatives: Commentary on a critique

In this commentary, Michael Rustin reviews the articles in the symposium, outlining their main aims and arguments. He goes on to provide some critical reflections, asking questions about the key concept of the ‘therapeutic state’. He notes that little attention is given to psychoanalytic or other psychological theories of the mind, as distinct from the biological models which are the main object of criticism in the symposium. He argues that just as it is justifiable and useful to take account of theories of the mind in considering issues of mental health and therapy, so it is desirable also to take account of the structures of society which have responsibility for generating conditions of mental well- or ill-being, and to reflect on how these may be changed. The commentary argues that the counter-cultural and somewhat ‘post-modern’ critical approach which informs the symposium can only form part of a sufficient response to the problems which the symposium identifies.     

Symposium: Hardware innovation and utilization

A tutorially structured symposium is being presented by professionals in various fields of computer technology. The symposium develops the theme of effective utilization of computer-related hardware in papers describing (a) elementary hardware logic design, (b) microcomputer and microcontroller design and applications, and (c) microprogramming techniques and applications.     

Transforming and Redescribing Critical Thinking: Constructive Thinking

The author describes a published symposium which debated “Is Critical Thinking Biased?” The symposium meant to address concerns about critical thinking that are being expressed by feminist and postmodern scholars. However, through the author's critique, and the symposium respondent's, we learn the participants ended up begging the question of bias. The author maintains that the belief that critical thinking is “unbiased” is based on an assumption that knowers can be separated from what is known. She argues that critical thinking is a tool which has no life of its own, it only has meaning and purpose when fallible, biased people use it (weak sense bias). She challenges the idea of a transcendental epistemological perspective, thus all knowledge is provisional and perspectival (strong sense bias). The author begins to redescribe a transformed critical thinking as constructive thinking.     

THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE: ISLAMIC BIOETHICAL PERSPECTIVES

Abstract. In January 1985, about 80 Muslim religious scholars and biomedical scientists gathered in a symposium held in Kuwait to discuss the broad question “When does human life begin?” This article argues that this symposium is one of the milestones in the field of contemporary Islamic bioethics and independent legal reasoning (Ijtihād). The proceedings of the symposium, however, escaped the attention of academic researchers. This article is meant to fill in this research lacuna by analyzing the proceedings of this symposium, the relevant subsequent developments, and finally the interplay of Islam and the West as a significant dimension in these discussions.     

The Prospect of a Global Ethic on HIV/AIDS: The Religions and the Science–and–Religion Dialogue

This article introduces essays from a 2001 symposium on a global ethic and the issue of the spread of HIV/AIDS. The symposium began with the assumption that we can determine the possibility for such a global ethic if we both explore the potential of an interreligious dialogue and do so in the context of a science–and–religion dialogue. I argue that while the possibilities for a global ethic, in particular addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, may be debated, the results of this symposium suggest that the dialogue ought to be continued and that there is significant potential in the interfaith dialogue for creating models for both an ethic and specific strategies for action.     

Introduction to symposium on Philosophy and the art of writing by Richard Shusterman

This introductory piece provides context for this symposium on Richard Shusterman's new book, Philosophy and the Art of Writing. The piece reflects on the symposium genre from Plato's classic dialogue to its form today. It claims that Shusterman's work asks us to take this kind of philosophical writing more seriously, and for that reason the symposium itself has taken on a different structure. The piece discusses how each of the contributors responding to the book (with Shusterman leading the way), Eli Kramer, Randall Auxier, and Charles Johnson, have engaged in practicing, nurturing, and supporting broad modes of philosophical writing, and in turn why they have chosen to do so in this context.     

Somaesthetics and Chinese Philosophy: Between Unity and Pragmatist Pluralism

Responding to three articles in a symposium dedicated to my research in somaesthetics, this paper explores a variety of themes connecting my theories with classical Chinese philosophy. The symposium topics discussed here range from the ontology of body-mind and world to the ethics of somaesthetic self-cultivation, and then to the somaesthetic meanings of our practices of erotics and of eating. The paper shows how the pragmatist orientation of somaesthetics reconciles values of unity with those of difference and how key ideas of somaesthetics intersect, in different ways, with both Confucian and Daoist thought.     

Counselling and Computers: Introduction and Overview

The symposium on counselling and computers is introduced through a general consideration of the role of computers in both the counselling process and its administrative accoutrements.     

Family caregiving to dependent older adults: stress, appraisal, and coping

Articles presented in this 1987 APA symposium adopt a stress, appraisal, and coping framework for conceptualizing the experience of family caregiving. Each article emphasizes 2 themes: (a) caregivers' adaptation to the chronic demands of in-home caregiving and (b) factors that mediate the relationship between caregiving stress and caregiver's adaptation. The articles presented in this symposium illustrate both the utility of this theoretical approach to studying caregiving stress and the difficulty inherent in its use.     

Stress management: Approaches and interventions

The different approaches, possible interventions and subsequent evaluation problems related to stress management and counselling are discussed in relation to the other symposium papers.     

High-performance computer applications in the behavioral sciences

This symposium revisited the 1985 conference on Advanced Computing for Psychology. That meeting examined the application of new supercomputers in the behavioral sciences. The present symposium reviewed high-performance computing as applied to psychological models, human vision, neuralphysiological processes, and statistical analysis. The recent past and the projected future of high-performance computing in the behavioral sciences were evaluated.     

Introduction

The articles in the symposium “Teaching Early Modern Philosophy: New Approaches” provide theoretical reflections and practical advice on new ways of teaching undergraduate survey courses in early modern philosophy. This introduction lays out the rationale for the symposium and summarizes the articles that compose it.     

Counselling and the Organisation: An Introduction

The links between counselling and organisation development are discussed, drawing from personal consulting experience. The structure and aims of the symposium are outlined.     

Kant on freedom: A reply to my critics

The first two sections of this paper are devoted respectively to the criticisms of my views raised by Stephen Engstrom and Andrews Reath at a symposium on Kant's Theory of Freedom held in Washington D.C. on 28 December 1992 under the auspices of the North American Kant Society. The third section contains my response to the remarks of Marcia Baron at a second symposium in Chicago on 24 April 1993 at the APA Western Division meetings. The fourth section deals with some general criticisms of my treatment of Kant's theory of freedom and its connection with transcendental idealism that have been raised by Karl Ameriks, who was also a participant in the second symposium, in an earlier piece published in Inquiry and by Paul Guyer in a review. The paper as a whole is thus an attempt to reformulate and clarify some of the central claims of my book in light of the initial critical reaction.     

Introduction to IARPP Plenary Panel,Toronto, June 2015

These brief remarks introduce the symposium on Power and Authority, with clinical material by Francesca Colzani and discussions by Irwin Hoffman, Susanna Federici Nebbiosi, and Gillian Straker. I am glad we have the opportunity in this symposium to discuss power and authority in the clinical situation, because while this subject has been a center of interest for relational psychoanalysts since the inception of the relational perspective, explicit attention has not been paid to the topic in the recent past. Yet power and authority are always present and always important in our activities—in every clinical session, every supervision session, and every page we write. This symposium is composed of an incisive and moving clinical report by Francesca Colzani, followed by discussions by Irwin Hoffman, Susanna Federici Nebbiosi, and Gill Straker.     

On Reflective Knowledge: replies to Battaly and Reed

This article is a reply to Baron Reed and Heather Battaly, two critics in a book symposium on my Reflective Knowledge. The reply to Reed concerns the main content and structure of Descartes??s epistemology. The reply to Battaly concerns how best to deal with epistemic circularity.     

Zoning in on music and the brain

A one-day symposium, The Musical Brain, was held at The Royal Institution, London, UK, on 12 July 2002.     

Revelry,Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal: The Fortunes of Hindu Festivals,by Rachel Fell McDermott,New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, xviii + 372 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-12918-3, US$90.00 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-231-12919-0, US$29.50 (paperback)

This article introduces a review symposium on Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism. I situate this book in the newly emerging field of Buddhism and sexuality, and also provide a discussion of previous works by the author that led to the current volume under review. I also provide a broad overview of the book itself for those unfamiliar with the work. The responses in this symposium are offered by Sarah H. Jacoby (Northwestern University), John Powers (Deakin University), and Amy Paris Langenberg (Eckerd College).     

Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain: A Symposium: Introduction

This article introduces the symposium “Toward a Philosophy of Blockchain,” which provides a philosophical contemplation of blockchain technology, the digital ledger software underlying cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, for the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet without needing a third‐party intermediary. The symposium offers philosophical scholarship on a new topic, blockchain technology, from a variety of perspectives. The philosophical themes discussed include mathematical models of reality, signification, and the sociopolitical institutions that structure human life and interaction. The symposium also investigates the metaphilosophical theme of how to create a philosophy of anything, specifically a new topic such as blockchain technology. Repeated themes are identified, in all areas of philosophical inquiry (ontology, epistemology, and axiology), and conceptual resources are elaborated to contribute to a philosophical understanding of blockchain technology. Thus, philosophy as a metaphilosophical approach is shown to be able to provide an understanding of the conceptual, theoretical, and foundational dimensions of novelty and emergence in the world, with a particular focus on blockchain technology.     

Mental models,pictures, and text: Integration of spatial and verbal information

In the past several years, there has been an acceleration in the publication of cognitive research on the interplay between linguistic and pictorial/spatial information. To report on and encourage this sort of research, we organized a symposium at the 1991 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. The articles in this special section ofMemory & Cognition are based on the work presented at the symposium. In this introduction, we offer a suggestion forwhy the integration of linguistic and spatial information is not only a possibility, but a requirement for effective communication. Our suggestion follows the linguistic analysis of the closed-class elements that convey spatial relations, the prepositions (Talmy, 1983). The structure of language provides but a small set of prepositions to encode the vast number of spatial relations that we can perceive. Thus, to understand a situation that a speaker or a writer is conveying, the listener or reader must combine linguistic information with (perhaps metric) spatial information derived from pictures, the environment, or memory.