Why Philosophy Abides for Aquinas

In Truth in Aquinas Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank continue Radical Orthodoxy's 'reinterpretation' of the history of philosophy and theology by evaluating philosophy as metaphysics so that 'metaphysics collapses into sacra doctrina ' in Thomas Aquinas. Their strategy for saving Aquinas from Heideggerian 'onto-theology' is the opposite of that Jean-Luc Marion who in 'Saint Thomas d'Aquin et l'onto-théo-logie' keeps philosophy and metaphysics distinct from sacred teaching. The article examines some of the questions involved by reconsidering the nature of philosophy as textual commentary in late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. It goes on to examine what Aquinas means by 'the truth of things', and concludes by looking at how he treats the aspects of metaphysics and the relation of metaphysics and sacra doctrina . Hankey judges that Marion is right on this question. The author suggests that what is involved with Milbank and Pickstock is not a reinterpretation of Aquinas. What they have written depends on mistakes and misrepresentations of basic points in his teaching, e.g, participation, intellectual intuition and abstractions, God's being and his existence in things, with the result that Thomas looks more like Descartes or Spinoza than himself.     

Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot (eds.), Understanding the Attributes of God [Contributions to Philosophical Theology,volume 1]

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Burnout in Health Care: The Role of the Five Factors of Personality

Job burnout continues to plague organizations and individuals, resulting in costly consequences. In examining the antecedents to job burnout, prior research has primarily focused on role stressors present in the job environment. with little attention given to individual characteristics. The purpose of this field study was to examine the extent to which dimensions of an individual's personality have differential efects on the 3 components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization. and diminished personal accomplishment) among nurses working in a hospital. After controlling for several demographic variables and 3 role stressors, findings indicate that specific dimensions of personality do significantly and differentially impact the experience of the 3 components of burnout.     

Problem formulation for multi-criteria decision analysis: report of a workshop

This paper reports on a workshop on Problem Formulation in Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis held at SPUDM97. The focus of the workshop was the problem formulation phase which occurs between the analyst meeting a person with a ‘mess’ and the time he or she begins to analyse a structured problem with several alternatives scored against several attributes or criteria. The objectives were: to share experience on procedures which might be transferable between the methodologies; to demonstrate different skills used by the analyst in structuring decision problems; and to catalyse a discussion on the problem formulation phase of an analysis. Three analysts, who generally approach problems using multiattribute methods, addressed the same problem. The problem used was constructed to be realistic to three decision makers, who had been trained in the issues of concern. There were two sessions. Each analyst was assigned a decision maker and formulated the problem independently in the first session, held in parallel. They were each observed by two observers and many of the audience at the workshop. The three formulations were presented along with the comments of the observers and discussed at a second plenary session. This paper reports the three formulations and observations, remarking on the ‘tricks of the trade’ employed by the analysts in formulating the problem. The analysts also describe their thinking and their aims in adopting their approach and style of interaction. More general remarks on the process of decision analysis are also offered. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of a paired-stimulus demand analysis to evaluate demands for inclusion in functional analyses

Clinicians regularly use both indirect and direct assessments to identify preferred stimuli to include in control conditions and positive reinforcement test conditions in a functional analysis (FA). However, clinicians often rely on indirect assessment alone (e.g., caregiver report) to identify aversive stimuli to include in negative reinforcement test conditions. In this study, we evaluate a paired-stimulus demand analysis and validate assessment results via FA. Results indicate that, for all 4 participants, the demands selected least often evoked higher rates of destructive behavior than more frequently selected demands. We identified an escape function for all 4 participants in the escape–least selected (LS) condition (true positive finding) and for only 1 participant in the escape–most selected (MS) condition (false negative finding for 3 of 4 participants). These results support the utility of empirically deriving stimuli for inclusion in the negative reinforcement test condition of an FA to decrease the likelihood of false negative findings.     

Evaluation of early relational disturbance in high-risk populations: Borderline personality disorder features,maternal mental state,and observed interaction

Despite the longstanding theoretical association in the attachment literature between maternal trauma history and disturbances in the mother–infant interaction, few studies have investigated mechanisms of transmission of traumatogenic relational patterns in high-risk mother–infant dyads. This study investigated interrelationships among maternal trauma history, distorted maternal representations (DMRs, i.e. disturbed thoughts and feelings about the infant and self-as-parent), maternal mentalisation (i.e. capacity to conceive of self and other's intentions in terms of mental states including thoughts, feelings, and desires), and quality of interaction in a clinical sample of mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) features and their infants (N = 61). Measures used included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Parent Development Interview, Mother–Infant Relationship Scale, Borderline Symptom Checklist-23, and the Emotional Availability Scales. The results indicated BPD features mediated the relationship between maternal trauma history and DMRs predicting disturbance in interaction. In addition, analyses showed that maternal mentalisation had a buffering effect between DMRs and maternal non-hostility and yet the severity of BPD features moderated the relationship between mentalisation and DMRs. The findings suggest postpartum borderline pathology may adversely impact the experience of being a parent for women with a relational trauma history including deficits in mentalisation (i.e. hypermentalising) and disturbances in the mother–infant interaction. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Resurgence following differential reinforcement of alternative behavior implemented with and without extinction

In the clinic, differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) often involves programming extinction for destructive behavior while reinforcing an alternative form of communication (e.g., a functional communication response); however, implementing extinction can be unsafe or impractical under some circumstances. Quantitative theories of resurgence (i.e., Behavioral Momentum Theory and Resurgence as Choice) predict differences in the efficacy of treatments that do and do not involve extinction of target responding when reinforcement conditions maintaining alternative responding worsen. We tested these predictions by examining resurgence following two DRA conditions in which we equated rates of reinforcement. In DRA without extinction, target and alternative behavior produced reinforcement. In DRA with extinction plus noncontingent reinforcement, only alternative behavior produced reinforcement. We conducted this study in a reverse-translation sequence, first with participants who engaged in destructive behavior (Experiment 1) and then in a laboratory setting with rats (Experiment 2). Across both experiments, we observed proportionally lower levels of target responding during and following the DRA condition that arranged extinction for the target response. However, levels of resurgence were similar following both arrangements.