Philosophy as Anti-Religion in the Work of Alain Badiou

The Heideggerian rupture in the history of philosophy in the name of a phenomenological and poetic ontology has provided an opening which many of the key figures in twentieth century continental thought have exploited. However, this opening was marked by Heidegger himself as an ambiguous one, insofar as metaphysics was perhaps integrally ‘onto-theology,’ that is, ultimately continuous with the world-historical capture of the thought of being. This piece argues that the philosophy of Alain Badiou, which departs from the recognition that Heidegger is the ‘last universally recognised philosopher’, provides the means for a radical reconsideration of the philosophy-theology relationship in its specifically Heideggerian form, involving as it does further questions of science and technology, the status of the poem, and the nature of ontological thought as such. We argue that, through the deployment of mathematics as ontology, the Gordian knot of onto-theology and its legion of consequences can be cut, and a new assemblage of many of the key Heideggerian motifs can be put into play: the poem, history, and philosophy itself.

Glucocorticoid sensitivity in humans-interindividual differences and acute stress effects

The hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA)- axis is one of the major output systems of the neuroendocrine stress response. Its major end products, glucocorticoids (GCs), have a plethora of effects throughout the organism, most of which are believed to be protective against disturbances of homeostasis. However, negative effects have also been described under specific conditions of hyper- or hypo(re)activity of the HPA axis. Both beneficial and adverse effects of GCs ultimately depend on the target tissue sensitivity to these steroids. Recent findings suggest that GC sensitivity (a) may vary between different target tissues in the same organism, (b) shows large individual differences and (c) can be acutely changed in times of acute stress. In the present review, data are summarized which show differences in GC sensitivities in patients suffering from diverse somatic and psychiatric diseases, as well as chronically stressed individuals. Furthermore, studies are presented that show a rapid modulation of GC sensitivity in response to exercise or psychosocial stress in healthy adults. The response pattern of acute GC sensitivity modulation seems to be influenced by age and sex hormone status of the individual. While the GC signalling cascade may be subject to modulation at several levels, the pathway for acute modulation of GC sensitivity remains to be elucidated.     

Penalization approaches in the conditional maximum likelihood and Rasch modelling context

Recent detection methods for Differential Item Functioning (DIF) include approaches like Rasch Trees, DIFlasso, GPCMlasso and Item Focussed Trees, all of which - in contrast to well established methods - can handle metric covariates inducing DIF. A new estimation method shall address their downsides by mainly aiming at combining three central virtues: the use of conditional likelihood for estimation, the incorporation of linear influence of metric covariates on item difficulty and the possibility to detect different DIF types: certain items showing DIF, certain covariates inducing DIF, or certain covariates inducing DIF in certain items. Each of the approaches mentioned lacks in two of these aspects. We introduce a method for DIF detection, which firstly utilizes the conditional likelihood for estimation combined with group Lasso-penalization for item or variable selection and L1-penalization for interaction selection, secondly incorporates linear effects instead of approximation through step functions, and thirdly provides the possibility to investigate any of the three DIF types. The method is described theoretically, challenges in implementation are discussed. A dataset is analysed for all DIF types and shows comparable results between methods. Simulation studies per DIF type reveal competitive performance of cmlDIFlasso, particularly when selecting interactions in case of large sample sizes and numbers of parameters. Coupled with low computation times, cmlDIFlasso seems a worthwhile option for applied DIF detection.     

Goal engagement in coping with occupational uncertainty predicts favorable career-related outcomes

We investigated whether goal engagement and disengagement in coping with occupational uncertainty (e.g., perceptions of growing difficulties in career planning and lacking job opportunities) predicts three objective career-related outcomes: job loss, job finding, and income change. We also tested for the buffering effects of these coping strategies on the association between objectively unfavorable labor market conditions (as indicated by regional unemployment rates) and these outcomes. We used four-wave survey data from a longitudinal sample of 620 German adults aged 16–43 years at the first wave and analyzed changes in the three career-related outcomes across 1294 pairs of successive annual waves. Analyses revealed that goal engagement predicted a higher chance of job finding over one year. Moreover, goal engagement buffered the association between higher regional unemployment rates and a higher likelihood of job loss, as well as a lower income, over one year. Goal disengagement predicted a lower income but had no other statistically significant effects. Thus, even in a relatively highly regulated labor market like the German one, goal engagement in coping with occupational uncertainty can contribute to objective career success.     

Getting going and letting go: Religiosity fosters opportunity‐congruent coping with work‐related uncertainties

This study investigated how religiosity relates to goal engagement (i.e., investing time and effort; overcoming obstacles) and goal disengagement (i.e., protecting self‐esteem and motivational resources against failure experiences; distancing from unattainable goals) in coping with perceived work‐related uncertainties (e.g., growing risk of job loss) that arise from current social change. We hypothesised that religiosity not only expands individuals' capacities for both engagement and disengagement but also fosters an opportunity‐congruent pattern of engagement and disengagement, promoting engagement especially under favourable opportunities for goal‐striving in the social ecology and facilitating disengagement especially under unfavourable opportunities. Multilevel analyses in a sample of N = 2089 Polish adults aged 20–46 years partly supported these predictions. Religiosity was associated with higher goal engagement, especially under favourable economic opportunities for goal‐striving in the social ecology (as measured by the regional net migration rate). For disengagement, the results were more mixed; religiosity was related to higher self‐protection independently of the economic opportunity structure and predicted higher goal‐distancing only under the most unfavourable opportunities. These results suggest that religiosity can promote different coping strategies under different conditions, fostering a pattern of opportunity‐congruent engagement and, to some extent, disengagement that is likely to be adaptive.     

Affective Constellations for Countertransference Awareness Following a Client's Suicide Attempt

Effective counseling with suicidal clients requires the development and maintenance of a strong therapeutic alliance. However, unmanaged countertransference (CT) can inhibit the alliance. This article provides strategies for enhancing CT awareness in counselors to support alliance building with clients after a client suicide attempt. The authors define CT in the context of suicide, introduce affective constellations as a method for CT awareness, and apply the method to a case vignette. A figure for self‐reflection and supervision is provided.     

A New Measure of Hallucinatory States and a Discussion of REM Sleep Dreaming as a Virtual Laboratory for the Rehearsal of Embodied Cognition

Hallucinatory states are experienced not only in connection with drugs and psychopathologies but occur naturally and spontaneously across the human circadian cycle: Our nightly dreams bring multimodal experiences in the absence of adequate external stimuli. The current study proposes a new, tighter measure of these hallucinatory states: Sleep onset, REM sleep, and non‐REM sleep are shown to differ with regard to (a) motor imagery indicating interactions with a rich imaginative world, and (b) cognitive agency that could enable sleepers to recognize their hallucinatory state. Mentation reports from the different states were analysed quantitatively with regard to two grammatical–semantic constructs, motor agency and cognitive agency. The present results support earlier physiological and psychological evidence in revealing a decline in cognitive functions and an increase in simulated interactions with a hallucinatory world, en route to normal REM sleep. This leads us to introduce the hypothesis that REM sleep, which exhibits remarkably high levels of (simulated) sensorimotor processes, may have evolved to serve as a virtual laboratory for the development and rehearsal of embodied cognition. The new measure of hallucinatory states presented here may also hold implications for the study of executive functions and (meta‐)cognitions, which might be interesting, for example, for the investigation of lucid dreaming.     

Sample Size Determination for Rasch Model Tests

This paper is concerned with supplementing statistical tests for the Rasch model so that additionally to the probability of the error of the first kind (Type I probability) the probability of the error of the second kind (Type II probability) can be controlled at a predetermined level by basing the test on the appropriate number of observations. An approach to determining a practically meaningful extent of model deviation is proposed, and the approximate distribution of the Wald test is derived under the extent of model deviation of interest.