What does Mr. Tennessen mean,and what should I say?

Referring to Professor Tennessen's article “What Should We Say?”; (Inquiry, vol. 2 (1959), pp. 265–90), Mr. Stigen argues that Tennessen fails to distinguish between the speech situation of the speaker and that of the interpreter. He therefore, according to Stigen, confuses the problems relevant to each of them and frequently treats problems of “What should I say?”; with considerations relevant only to interpreters, whose proper question is “What does he mean?”;, and vice versa. Among other mistakes, according to Stigen, this failure to distinguish the problems leads Tennessen to recommend a Humpty Dumpty attitude for speakers, although it is appropriate only to interpreters. The paper closes with some remarks on the use of modifying expressions.     

Does thinking about the meaning of life make you happy in a religious and globalised world? A 75-nation study

This paper reports on a multilevel study of 75 nations, which tests two hypotheses that arose from considering Tolstoy's experience of thinking about the meaning and purpose of life. The globalisation-as-exacerbator hypothesis predicts that as globalisation increases, the relationship between thinking about the meaning and purpose of life and life satisfaction becomes more negative. The religiosity-as-buffer hypothesis predicts that as religiosity increases, the relationship between thinking about the meaning and purpose of life and life satisfaction becomes more positive. The results presented here support both hypotheses. We also found that it is religious attendance (not religious belief) that functions as a buffer in the relationship between thinking about the meaning and purpose of life and life satisfaction.     

TAKING IN MORE OF LIFE

This is a story not only about my father's death but also about how it has affected me and life as I see it. I believe that the circumstances in my life following my father's death are connected to each other and have become my greatest lessons that I have learned in life.     

Significant life events and the shape of memories to come: a hypothesis

Much has been said about how significant life events modulate our response to stimuli that are integral to those events. However, we know less about the more general consequences of these events, that is, how they affect subsequent learning abilities that are seemingly irrelevant to the initial event. Here, it is proposed that significant life events, most often stressful in nature, alter future learned responses by inducing nonspecific and persistent changes in neuroanatomical structures. These changes are induced in the presence of sex and stress hormones, which are released either in response to the event itself or as a consequence of stages of life. To illustrate, the effects of acute stressful experience on learning processes and their regulation by the release of hormones are reviewed. I discuss how these events and their hormonal consequences alter anatomical substrates such as those involved in neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. It is proposed that these modulatory processes allow past experiences to change the shape of memories to come. In this way, memorable life events become less about the past and more about the future.     

What happened in kindergarten? Mother-child conversations about life story chapters

ABSTRACT

Research indicates that adults form life story chapters, representations of extended time periods that include people, places and activities. Life chapter memories are distinct from episodic memories and have implications for behaviour, self and mental health, yet little is known about their development during childhood. Two exploratory studies examined parent–child conversations about life chapters. In Study 1, mothers recorded naturalistic conversations with their 5–6 year old children about two chapters in the child’s life. In Study 2, mothers recorded conversations with their 6–7 year old children about a particular life chapter—the child’s kindergarten year—and also about a specific episode of their choice. The results indicated that young children are able to recall and discuss information about life chapters and that parents actively scaffold children’s discussion of general information in chapters as well as specific events. Mothers’ conversational style when discussing chapters (e.g., elaborativeness) predicted children’s memory contributions, and was also positively correlated with their style when discussing specific events. The results suggest new avenues for research on the ontogeny of life chapters, the factors that shape them, and their role in development.     

Negotiating boundaries in the definition of life: Wittgensteinian and Darwinian insights on resolving conceptual border conflicts

What is the definition of life? Artificial life environments provide an interesting test case for this classical question. Understanding what such systems can tell us about biological life requires negotiating the tricky conceptual boundary between virtual and real life forms. Drawing from Wittgenstein’s analysis of the concept of a game and a Darwinian insight about classification, I argue that classifying life involves both causal and pragmatic elements. Rather than searching for a single, sharp definition, these considerations suggest that life is a cluster concept with fuzzy boundaries and that there are multiple legitimate ways to make the notion precise for different scientific purposes. This pluralist, realist account avoids unnecessary border disputes by emphasizing how science negotiates such questions in relation to theory and evidence. I also discuss several objections to this approach, including a “moral hesitation” some have to allowing broader application of the concept of life to include artificial life.     

Life Meaning and Sign Meaning

Abstract

Philosophers once dismissed questions about meaning in life as conceptually confused. Only language and related phenomena, it was thought, can have meaning; thus, to ask about the meaning of life is to misapply the concept. Recent work by Susan Wolf, Thaddeus Metz, Aaron Smuts, and others has brought new attention and respectability to the topic. However, while talk of life meaning is no longer considered nonsense, most theorists continue to assume that such talk has nothing to do with meaning in the ‘sign’ sense that applies to language. In this paper I argue that this assumption is not well justified and that reflection on the example of Sherlock Holmes's life can help us to see why.     

Right to life, right to die and assisted suicide

In 2002 Diane Pretty went to the European Court of Human Rights to gain a ruling about assisted suicide. In the course of this she argued that the right to life implied a right to die. This paper will consider, from an ethical rather than a legal point of view, how the right to life might imply (or not) a right to die, and whether this includes either a right that others shall help us die, or a right against non-interference if others are willing to help us. It does this by comparing the right to life to conceptions of property rights. This is not because I think human life is property, but because some of our ways of talking and thinking about our control over our own lives seem to be similar to our thoughts about our control over our own property. The right to life has traditionally been taken as a negative right, that is a right that others not deprive us of life. Pretty's argument, however, seems to be moving towards a positive right, not just to remain alive, but to be enabled in doing what we want to with our lives, and thus disposing of them if we so choose. The comparison with property rights suggests that the right to die only applies if our lives are ours absolutely, and may itself be modified by the suggestion that suicide harms all of us by devaluing human life in general.     

中国古代养生体育思想简论

中国古代养生体育思想是建立在其关于生命的认识基础上.传统文化从天人合一、天人相应的高度观照人的生命现象,认为人的生命是天地自然运化的产物,人的生命与天地自然运化具有相同的节律,与此相应,传统养生观要求顺应自然大化,遵循自然规律,按照自然运化节律调养身心;传统哲学认为人的生命是一个形体与精神相结合的整体,因此,在养生观上主张养神与养形相结合,提出了静以养神,动以养形的养生法则.     

"If I had it to do over again...": midlife review, midcourse corrections, and women's well-being in midlife

Regrets about early adult life choices, expressed in midlife, are examined as a source of motivation for life changes in later midlife in 2 samples of women. Replicated findings with longitudinal data indicate that regret motivates goal setting but is not associated with actually making desired life changes. In both samples, women who had regrets about early adult life choices but did not make relevant life changes were lower in later well-being than both women with regrets who did make such changes and women without regrets. Compared with women who transformed regrets into life changes, women who did not were lower in effective instrumentality and higher in rumination, though they did not appear to face more barriers to change. Analyses with longitudinal data indicated that both rumination and effective instrumentality mediated the relationship between regret and well-being for women who did not translate regret into life changes.     

The uncomfortable truth about wrongful life cases

Our ambivalent attitudes toward the notion of ‘a life worth living’ present a philosophical puzzle: Why are we of two minds about the birth of a severely disabled child? Is the child’s life worth living or not worth living? Between these two apparently incompatible evaluative judgments, which is true? If one judgment is true and the other false, what makes us continue to find both evaluations appealing? Indeed, how can we manage to hold these inconsistent judgments simultaneously at all? I critically examine two solutions to this puzzle: the hidden-indexical account and Velleman’s anti-realist account. I propose an alternative explanation which appeals to (a) state-given, as opposed to object-given, reasons for belief and (b) the distinction between belief and acceptance. I argue that (1) the fact that a severely disabled life is not worth living provides object-given reason to believe that that life is not worth living, but (2) after the birth of a severely disabled child, the psychological utility of positive evaluation gives us a state-given reason to believe that that child’s life is worth living, and a reason to accept that, in our relation with the child, her life is worth living. I conclude by drawing a practical lesson about wrongful life suits.     

In Search of Authenticity: A Heideggerian Quest

Martin Heidegger's conception of authentic resoluteness gives us a picture of life as an unfolding story aimed at a fulfillment of a specific sort. Such resoluteness provides a focus and continuity to a life that can help an individual find meaning and order during times of personal difficulties. This phenomenology of an attempt to live an authentic life gives an image of how such a personal quest might be worked out. In this article, I talk about how Heidegger's concept of authenticity has affected my life ever since I learned about it from lectures and secondary sources in 1961. The narrative conception of life as a story adding up to something is an idea that has helped me through difficult times, and I continue to embrace it to this day.     

Principles and Problems in the Assessment of Quality of Life in Health Care

A remarkable surge in efforts to assess the quality of life of patients has occurred in recent years in medical research. Philosophical discussions of these developments have focused, on the one hand, on epistemological reservations about the plausibility of measuring quality of life and, on the other hand, on moral and ethical qualms about the meaning of life conveyed in such assessments. Whilst providing an important note of caution, such critiques fail to recognise two basic principles of quality of life in medical research. Firstly it is intended to provide understanding about groups and categories of patients rather than individuals. Secondly the purpose of such research is to produce generalisations about the relative costs and benefits of specific health care interventions rather than absolute judgements regarding the quality of life of patients per se. Selecting a good quality of life measure for a clinical trial requires balancing criteria such as validity with practical feasibility. Such measures will play an increasingly central role in providing research evidence to improve health care.     

LIFE AND MEANING

This paper addresses an apparent tension between a familiar claim about meaning in general, to the effect that the meaning of anything owes to its place, ultimately, within a ‘form of life’, and a claim, also familiar, about the meaning of human life itself, to the effect that this must be something ‘beyond the human’. How can life itself be meaningful if meaning is a matter of a relationship to life? After elaborating and briefly defending these two claims, two ways of amending and thereby reconciling them are considered and rejected. These ways involve either spiriting away the issue of life's meaning or encouraging unwelcome metaphysical views. The author then argues that, rather than remove the tension between the two claims, each should be viewed as expressing an aspect of a delicate metaphysical position. This position is distinguished from ones, like transcendental idealism and constructivism, with which it might be confused, and is then related to Daoist and Zen thought and to the later philosophy of Heidegger. Crucial to the position is the proposal that the ‘beyond the human’ which enables life to be meaningful is both ineffable and ‘intimate’ with life itself.     

Perceptions of success and life satisfaction: a gender examination in Taiwan

Gender socialization creates an expectation that men should achieve success (regardless of how it is defined), so men are under greater pressure than women when encountering successful persons and, accordingly, experience lower life satisfaction. Two experiments were conducted in Taiwan to test the proposed effects on life satisfaction. Study 1 showed that 149 students were more likely to infer successful targets as male than female. A path model demonstrated that feeling less powerful against ideal same‐sex persons predicted men's (but not women's) lower life satisfaction after they read about successful targets. Study 2 (106 students) showed that reading about successful targets had differential effects for men and women. Implications regarding culture, gender, and life satisfaction were discussed.     

大学生对一般生活事件和意外事故的乐观和悲观偏差估计：直接和间接测量的比较

研究考查了大学生对一般生活事件和意外事故的乐观与悲观偏差,并检验不同测量方法是否会产生不同结果。通过对273名大学生进行问卷研究,结果发现：（1）在直接和间接测量时,被试对一般消极事件、意外事故存在乐观偏差,对幸免于意外事故存在悲观偏差;但对一般积极事件,被试在直接测量时出现乐观偏差,在间接测量时为悲观偏差。（2）在两种方法中,被试对意外事故的乐观偏差皆高于一般消极事件,但一般积极事件与幸免于意外事故的结果在直接测量时有显著差异,而在间接测量中差异不显著。（3）在直接测量时,消极事件的发生频率越低乐观偏差越严重,积极事件的发生频率越低则悲观偏差越严重;在间接测量中事件频率与偏差结果相关不显著。     

大学生自杀现象引发的生命教育的思考

大学生自杀现象屡见不鲜,大学生生命意识的淡薄,高校生命教育的缺失是大学生自杀很重要的因素.着重介绍了生命教育的内涵、发展沿革,大学教育中实施生命教育的意义和紧迫性,以及高校(包括医学院校)对如何实施生命教育作了一些思考.     

Counterfactual thinking about one’s birth enhances well-being judgments

Previous research demonstrates that thinking counterfactually about life experiences facilitates meaning making about those events. Two studies extend this work into the well-being domain by examining the effects of writing factually or counterfactually about one’s birth on well-being. In Study 1, participants (N?=?252) were randomly assigned to write factually or counterfactually about their births or the election of Barack Obama and then completed measures of meaning in life and life satisfaction. Writing counterfactually about one’s birth led to higher evaluations of life relative to all other groups. In Study 2, (N?=?98) participants wrote factually or counterfactually about their births and again completed well-being measures. Fate attributions, probability estimates, and feelings of luck were explored as potential mediators. The effect on well-being from Study 1 replicated, but was not driven by any of the measured variables. Implications for existential psychology and well-being research are discussed.