"Official" Doctrine and "Unofficial" Practices: The Negotiation of Catholicism in a Netherlands Community

This article examines the Dutch Catholic Church. It is based on a qualitative ethnographic analysis of a particular Dutch Catholic community. It seeks to demonstrate that despite a decline in the church since the 1960s many Dutch parishioners are becoming active in redefining the church and attempting to revitalize Catholicism, creating democratically organized local communities where laity and local clergy, women and men, work together as equals in negotiating change, but argues that this may involve "unofficial" practices, possibly at odds with "official" church hierarchy controlled doctrine, which may resist acknowledging them and resist change. By examining these issues, the article aims to understand the dialectic and tension between what could be termed "popular" and "orthodox", "private" and "public", beliefs and to examine the constraints or possibilities this may place on the church. In this sense, the article also aims to explore how religion, thought to be vulnerable to recent change encouraging individual independence from social institutions, may negotiate (or reject) new developments. Although challenged, Catholic identity may still be valued and provide individuals with resources for negotiating new developments. However, the success or failure of this may depend on the nature of the struggle for authority and influence between "official" and "unofficial" versions of Catholicism.     

A systemic social-cognitive perspective on doping

Objectives

The present article provides a theoretically sound framework (i.e., a social-cognitive approach), using conceptual models and concrete examples, to aid our understanding of why some people dope.

Design

Recognizing that sports occur in a social environment, the current article is grounded in social-cognitive theory. Additionally, since many studies investigating doping have attempted to use cause-and-effect or correlational methods, this article emphasized the systemic nature of doping behavior.

Method

The present article succinctly clarifies why some people take greater risks than others (e.g., dope), and specifically discusses the roles of history, obedience to authority, brain development, culture, stereotypes, and reinforcement, as they relate with doping.

Results

Although likely possible, it is difficult to provide an example of an effective intervention that adequately addresses the deletion of doping. However, an example based on social-cognitive principles is provided.

Conclusions

Future research that emphasizes a social-cognitive approach to doping is needed. Interventions built from such research likely will lead to effective anti-doping interventions.     

"Good enough stories": helping couples invest in one another's growth

This article utilizes key constructs of the narrative metaphor: that stories organize, structure, and give meaning to events in our lives. When stories are used as a way to understand the lives of couples, they have the potential for enhancing individual and relational growth. It is proposed that knowing both our own and our partner's story and development goals increases the likelihood of making an investment in self/other and relational growth. It is further suggested that helping couples develop narratives with a sense of "We" promotes a more generative perspective. These ideas were developed in a small qualitative pilot study with long-married, middle-class, heterosexual couples, which suggested that the synthesis of each partner's life story into a couple story promoted individual and relational development. Implications for therapeutic work with couples are presented as well as specific recommendations for ways to utilize the life story approach as an aspect of treatment. It is intended to assist clinicians and teachers in translating narrative ideas into therapeutic work with couples.     

Unity versus multiplicity: a conceptual analysis of the term "self" and its use in personality theories

There is no single answer to the unity-multiplicity problem regarding the self for the simple reason that the term "self" is used by too many different theorists in too many different ways. In fact, there are several important substantive topic areas that need to be distinguished and studied scientifically. The topic areas I examine in this article are reflexivity, unit coherence, agency, and subjectivity. Each of these areas will be evaluated in terms of what it contributes to, and can be interpreted in terms of, the unity-multiplicity issue. It is proposed that we need a more differentiated technical vocabulary if we are to better understand the phenomena we are examining. Matching our technical vocabulary to this empirical detail sharpens the questions being asked and places the empirical facts in better focus. A more elaborate framework of conceptual differentiation provides a better basis for developing an integrated theory.     

The Effect of an Ethical Decision-Making Training on Young Athletes’ Attitudes Toward Doping

This article examines whether a training program in ethical decision making can change young athletes’ doping attitudes. Fifty-two young elite athletes were randomly assigned to either an ethical decision-making training group or a standard-knowledge-based educational program group. Another 17 young elite athletes were recruited for no-treatment control purposes. The ethical decision-making training comprised six 30-min online sessions in which the participants had to work through 18 ethical dilemmas related to doping. The standard-knowledge-based educational program was also conducted in six online sessions of comparable length to that of the ethical training. A short version of the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale was administered to measure the effects of the trainings on doping attitude. Prior to as well as after the intervention, the mean doping attitude scores of the young athletes were low to very low, indicating vehement rejections of doping. The results of our experiment showed that the ethical training led to an attenuation of these rejections. No intervention effect was found in the standard education group. The observed slight increase in the doping attitude score could be an indication that the ethical decision-making training was successful in breaking up the athletes’ stereotypical style of reasoning about doping.     

The "Natural" and the "Formal"

The paper presents an argument against a metaphysical conception of logic according to which logic spells out a specific kind of mathematical structure that is somehow inherently related to our factual reasoning. In contrast, it is argued that it is always an empirical question as to whether a given mathematical structure really does captures a principle of reasoning. (More generally, it is argued that it is not meaningful to replace an empirical investigation of a thing by an investigation of its a priori analyzable structure without paying due attention to the question of whether it really is the structure of the thing in question.) It is proposed to elucidate the situation by distinguishing two essentially different realms with which our reason must deal: the realm of the natural, constituted by the things of our empirical world, and the realm of the formal, constituted by the structures that we use as prisms to view, to make sense of, and to reconstruct the world. It is suggested that this vantage point may throw light on many foundational problems of logic.     

"Show me" bioethics and politics

Missouri, the "Show Me State," has become the epicenter of several important national public policy debates, including abortion rights, the right to choose and refuse medical treatment, and, most recently, early stem cell research. In this environment, the Center for Practical Bioethics (formerly, Midwest Bioethics Center) emerged and grew. The Center's role in these "cultural wars" is not to advocate for a particular position but to provide well researched and objective information, perspective, and advocacy for the ethical justification of policy positions; and to serve as a neutral convener and provider of a public forum for discussion. In this article, the Center's work on early stem cell research is a case study through which to argue that not only the Center, but also the field of bioethics has a critical role in the politics of public health policy.     

The Boston Bio-Bang: The Emergence of a "Regional System of Innovation"

In this article we will describe the emergence of a great number of small, regionally concentrated, innovative biotech companies. We see these organizations as "hosts" of concepts and ideas, greatly influencing their spreading over the sector. We have chosen an evolutionary perspective following individual companies in their struggle for survival, describing it as "obtaining food" and "fooling predators." This struggle gives insight in the behavior of the biotech companies and related institutions as a "system of innovation." One of our findings is that the variety of biotech companies is conditioned by their selection environment, but that this selection environment allows great variety and even encourage variety by keeping the companies small.     

The Philosophy of "Naturalness" in the Laozi and Its Value For Contemporary Society

This article aims to show that the concept of "naturalness" in the Laozi is able to provide cultural guidance concerning values for contemporary social development.Specifically,the Laozi's concept of "naturalness"—manifested in the text's exhortation to "honor the dao and exalt the de" and its statement that "the dao models itself on naturalness"—has profound ontological,political and social implications concerning "naturalness" that are strongly expressed through a variety of propositions including "achieving all through non-action" and "downsizing the state and simplifying the people." With respect to the question about individuals living a life of appropriateness and establishing their destiny,the Laozi emphasizes such cultivation methods as "sticking to simplicity and authenticity" and "watching in quietude and observing in depth,"which are also infused with the conception of "naturalness," which stresses the notion that understanding the harmony between man and nature can provide useful lessons for the development of contemporary human society.     

Doping: Just Do It?

This paper provides a new philosophical argument against the lifting of the ban on doping in sports. It makes several assumptions for the sake of argument, one of which is, ironically, the moral justification of the lifting of the ban on sports doping. It is, then, a reductio ad absurdum against the claim that said ban should be lifted. Following this is a preliminary discussion concerning how doping athletes ought to be punished given that there ought to be a ban on doping due to the implausibility of the position to lift said ban. Considerations from responsibility and punishment theories are brought to bear in order to discern which punishments are most fitting for those athletes caught doping in designated clean sports competitions.     

心理分析治疗中"界限"的概念体系及意义

从心理分析的角度出发,通过文献研究和临床方法,首次系统提出并论证了界限的概念体系及与之相应的系统行为:“界内行为”、“越界行为”、“违界行为”和“侵界行为”;并就界限设置的双重意义以及治疗师系统行为的意义进行了讨论。     

A factor related to the strength of an "Aha!" experience

Abstract: It is natural to assume that the strength of an "Aha!" becomes stronger when an unexpected solution is correct. In this study, this assumption is examined experimentally through a list of possible correct solutions. In the experiment, subjects listed the possible correct solutions before solving the problems, and evaluated the strength of their "Aha!" experience after they solved the problems. It was shown that the strength of the "Aha!" experience was strongest if the correct answer had not been included in the list of possible correct solutions; if included, the strength of the "Aha!" experience corresponded to the answer's position in the list, that is, the later the correct solution listed, the stronger the feeling became. It is suggested that the strength of an "Aha!" experience can be used as an error function in the learning process.     

Philosophy on steroids: why the anti-doping position could use a little enhancement

There is currently much concern over the use of pharmaceuticals and other biomedical techniques to enhance athletic performance—a practice we might refer to as doping. Many justifications of anti-doping efforts claim that doping involves a serious moral transgression. In this article, I review a number of arguments in support of that claim, but show that they are not conclusive, suggesting that we do not have good reasons for thinking that doping is wrong.

"A Christian, Holy People" Martin Luther on Salvation and the Church

Starting from recent uneasiness with Protestant individualism, this article asks whether Luther's theological insights might help address the unintended cultural consequences of the Reformation. Luther's mature thought defines the church as a tangible "Christian, holy people" within history, constituted by distinctive public practices. This church is necessarily institutionalized: the "universal priesthood" is corporate rather than individual, and cannot be fully realized without ministers acting in persona ecclesiae. Ordered ministry and common priesthood are interdependent and mutually constitutive. Finally, following his central principle that God gives spiritual gifts only through public, bodily means, Luther allows no separation of justifying faith from bodily adherence to the Christian people.     

Building esprit de corps: learning to better navigate between "my" patient and "our" patient

Excellence in the care of hospital patients, particularly those in an intensive care unit, reflects esprit de corps among the care team. Esprit de corps depends on a delicate balance; each clinician must preserve a sense of personal responsibility for "my" patient and yet participate in the collaborative work essential to the care of "our" patient. A harmful imbalance occurs when a physician demands total control of the decision-making process, especially concerning end-of-life treatment options. Although emotional factors may push a physician to claim decision-making exclusivity, compounded by a legal framework that overemphasizes individual responsibility, esprit de corps can be preserved through timely communication among clinicians and a recognition that optimal care for "my" patient requires effective team practice.     

The time machine in our mind

This article provides the first comprehensive conceptual account for the imagistic mental machinery that allows us to travel through time--for the time machine in our mind. It is argued that language reveals this imagistic machine and how we use it. Findings from a range of cognitive fields are theoretically unified and a recent proposal about spatialized mental time travel is elaborated on. The following novel distinctions are offered: external versus internal viewing of time; 'watching" time versus projective 'travel" through time; optional versus obligatory mental time travel; mental time travel into anteriority or posteriority versus mental time travel into the past or future; single mental time travel versus nested dual mental time travel; mental time travel in episodic memory versus mental time travel in semantic memory; and 'seeing" versus 'sensing" mental imagery. Theoretical, empirical, and applied implications are discussed.     

Narrowing the "method" gap

Many teachers who have been trained to teach reading do not seem to transfer these skills to the other areas of the curriculum. It is suggested that teachers should approach the content areas using a total lesson approach. This approach adapts the directed reading activity method to content area instruction. This article includes a brief discussion of the adaptation of the directed reading activity method. Included is an explanation of each of the six steps as they might apply to the content area. The goals of the directed reading activity and those of the content areas have much in common. These include vocabulary building, various levels of comprehension, as well as "skimming and scanning." Encouraging teachers to apply this method can help to "close the gap" in methodology.     

《管子》论“国有四维”的现代启示

“礼”、“义”、“廉”、“耻”为国家的“四维”,《管子》曰：“国有四维,一维绝则倾,二维绝则危,三维绝则覆,四维绝则灭。”可见“礼”、“义”、“廉”、“耻”犹如支撑国家大厦的四根柱子,如果有一根断裂,就会危及国家的安危。在市场经济高度发展的现代,我们要借鉴“守国之道,在饰四维”的治国之道,汲取中国传统文化中“礼义廉耻”的合理因素,加强道德建设,使我们的国家更加昌盛富强。     

Remembering "what" brings along "where" in visual working memory

Does a behavioral and anatomical division exist between spatial and object working memory? In this article, we explore this question by testing human participants in simple visual working memory tasks. We compared a condition in which there was no location change with conditions in which absolute location change and absolute plus relative location change were manipulated. The results showed that object memory was influenced by memory for relative but not for absolute location information. Furthermore, we demonstrated that relative space can be specified by a salient surrounding box or by distractor objects with no touching surfaces. Verbal memory was not influenced by any type of spatial information. Taken together, these results indicate that memory for "where" influences memory for "what." We propose that there is an asymmetry in memory according to which object memory always contains location information.     

Collaborative helping maps: a tool to guide thinking and action in family-centered services

This article highlights "disciplined improvisation" as a metaphor for community-based work with multi-stressed families. It introduces Collaborative Helping maps as a tool that both helps workers think their way through complex situations with families and provides a structure to support constructive conversations between workers and families about challenging situations. The article illustrates this map through a clinical vignette and uses interviews with workers to highlight ways in which the map can both enhance worker thinking and support constructive conversations between workers and families about problems that could easily divide them and lead to polarization and escalating tension.