We Were the Future

In this paper, I try to decipher the era we are living in when our basic matrix collapses and our thinking apparatus is incessantly attacked. I look at the way these social and political processes we know through living in Israel impacts our daily life as human beings who work together with other human beings in order to decipher our and their ways of coping in a place where traumas pile one on the other as victims and perpetrators alike. I use a therapeutic tale not as an example of the intrusions of the political into our clinics but as a way to read the political through it. I choose this vignette as a metaphor to our situation in Israel.     

The Wiseman and the Sage:Metaphysics as Wisdom in Aristotle and the Neo-Confucian School of Principle

Among scholars of classical philosophy in the West, it is not uncommon to hesitate about the existence of metaphysics in non-Western philosophical traditions. At times, the dilemma seems due to culture-specific ideas or standards about what metaphysics is or how it should be done. Other times the problem seems to lie in a general lack of awareness about the methods and approaches of divergent philosophical traditions. This article explores an often ignored Aristotelian notion of metaphysics: That it is wisdom. If we acknowledge wisdom to be a common value or ideal found in different cultures, then characterizing metaphysics as wisdom promises to be more inclusive than prevalent ideas about it, being broad enough to allow for the appreciation of metaphysical insights and achievements in non-Western schools. I first examine Aristotle’s account of what wisdom consists of. I shall then test the inclusivity of this conception of metaphysics by showing how its characteristic features are manifest in the Neo-Confucian ideal of sagely learning.     

Replies to Selim Berker and Karl Schafer

I respond to six objections, raised by Selim Berker and Karl Schafer, against the theory offered in my Empiricism and Experience: (1) that the theory needs a problematic notion of subjective character of experience; (2) that the transition from the hypothetical to the categorical fails because of a logical difficulty; (3) that the constraints imposed on admissible views are too weak; (4) that the theory does not deserve the label ‘empiricism’; (5) that the motivations provided for the Reliability constraint are insufficient; and (6) that convergence is bound to fail since epistemic entitlements are permissions.     

Indian Perspective on Psychotherapy: Cultural Issues

India is in a state of transition between massively transformed ‘modern’ lifestyles on one hand and the influence of traditional values and customs on the other. In view of the current realities of urbanization, migration, globalisation and societal transformation, the mental health treatment needs have become complex. The article highlights the existing mental health issues and traces the development of various psychotherapeutic techniques in India. An effort has been made to look into the basic tenets of the Indian culture which have a bearing on the conceptualisation and practical application of psychotherapy in the Indian setting. The cross-cultural relevance and adaptability of western psychotherapies in multi-ethnic and collectivistic Asian culture are discussed. In view of the differences between the eastern and western approaches to mental health, challenges in culturally-responsive adaptations are highlighted. It is seen that psychological interventions among masses are beneficial if indigenous approaches based on paradigms like themes from Gita, are cross-fertilized with western psychotherapy. However, there is a need to generate empirical evidence for indigenization of psychological treatments.     

Conditionals in Theories of Truth

We argue that distinct conditionals—conditionals that are governed by different logics—are needed to formalize the rules of Truth Introduction and Truth Elimination. We show that revision theory, when enriched with the new conditionals, yields an attractive theory of truth. We go on to compare this theory with one recently proposed by Hartry Field.     

Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Infant Sleep at 7 Months of age: The Influence of the Caregiving Environment

The primary goal of this study was to examine sleep problems in a sample of cocaine-exposed 7-month-old infants and to determine if maternal psychopathology mediated any existing association between substance exposure and sleep behaviors. We also examined the differences in sleep behaviors of cocaine-exposed infants in parental custody and cocaine-exposed infants in nonparental custody. Participants were 65 cocaine-exposed and 53 nonexposed infants and their primary caregivers who were recruited at delivery and assessed at 7 months of infant age. As expected, women who used cocaine during pregnancy had more psychiatric symptoms than nonusers. Prenatal exposure to heavier amounts of cocaine was significantly related to more severe sleep difficulties, and maternal anxiety mediated this association. Approximately 28% of cocaine mothers lost custody of their infants by 7 months of age. Nonmaternal caregivers had significantly fewer symptoms of psychopathology than the cocaine-using women who retained custody of their children. Infants who were in nonparental care at 7 months of age also had less severe sleep problems than did infants who remained in parental care.     

Knowing hatred2,3

Hatred is known to be a common phenomenon and a lot has been written about this affect. However, the author believes that the more we read and write about hate the further away we find ourselves from a real sense of understanding of this so familiar and yet so elusive experience. She feels that using a single concept to describe ‘hatred’ seems to be a simplification of the matter, since it consists of a chain of affects that does not lend itself to easy theoretical or experiential distinction. In this paper the author aims at ‘knowing’ the experience of hatred as the individual's reaction to an unbearable existential excess, that is, as the psychic attempt to handle an emotional profusion in the context of human relation and in relation to it. The emotional abundance that the psyche cannot contain and process by itself is dealt with by the defensive use of simplification, detachment and distancing. An attempt is made to understand the relation between psychic existing and hatred, between craving, desiring and hate, between passionate aliveness‐or a passion to live‐ and the difficulty in containing the excessive dimension of it. The author illustrates her thesis through a reading of Tolstoy's ‘Kreutzer sonata’ as a monologue of hatred.     

Transition Within Tradition: Women's Participation in Restoring Afghanistan

The eyes of the world focused on Afghanistan: our global consciousness was awakened to the plight of a population in turmoil. The subjugation of women served as part of a call to arms, another reason used to justify armed conflict half a world away. Images of women in burkas, kept from education, health care, and meaningful work, their myriad talents and skills wasted, helped mobilize the coalition that joined in defeating the Taliban.     

A fixed point theorem for the Weak Kleene valuation scheme

Journal of Philosophical Logic -