Managing the Complexity of Dialogues in Context: A Data-Driven Discovery Method for Dialectical Reply Structures

Argumentation - Current formal dialectical models postulate normative rules that enable discussants to conduct dialogical interactions without committing fallacies. Though the rules for conducting...     

Childhood Experiences and Self-Control

Survey data collected simultaneously in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lviv, Ukraine; and a rural area of the Lviv region in Ukraine are used to examine hypothesized sources of self-control found in Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory (G/H) and in coercion/social support theory (CSS). Analyses provide limited support for the G/H model and almost no support for the challenge posed by arguments concerning social support and self-control. Exploratory analyses indicate that the various parenting dimensions specified in the G/H model and sources of social support implied by CSS theory may have countervailing influences on self-control, thereby producing less than desirable outcomes. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Does Religion Suppress,Socialize, Soothe,or Support? Exploring Religiosity's Influence on Crime

A negative association between religiosity and crime is commonly documented in the United States and other Western contexts. In this study, we examine associations between religiosity and criminal probability among randomly selected survey respondents in a non‐Western Christian context (Lviv, Ukraine) and a non‐Western Islamic context (Dhaka, Bangladesh). In addition, we explore whether religiosity is associated in these contexts with various theoretical mechanisms identified in prior research, including self‐control, social control, moral beliefs, negative emotions, and social support. Results confirm that religiosity is negatively correlated with projected criminal probability in non‐Western contexts as well as among both Christian and Muslim respondents. Furthermore, net of social and demographic characteristics, religiosity appears to indirectly influence crime through moral beliefs and, to a lesser extent, through self‐control and informal social control.     

Memory and identity among post-Soviet Evangelical Christians–Baptists in contemporary Ukraine

Evangelical Christians–Baptists (ECBs) are a prominent denomination in contemporary Ukraine. They survived persecution by Soviet state atheism and are meeting the challenges of postcommunist freedom. They provide good ground for a case study on how religious communities preserve their collective memories and identities when times and conditions change. In this paper, based on various sources produced by churches and religious organisations, I analyse the ways in which ECBs maintain and reflect upon their collective memories and reinvent their traditions. Particularly I focus on historical narratives and commemorations. I argue that the ECBs develop their collective memories in transnational, local and personal perspectives. They are eager to see the history of their community as an inalienable part of the national history of Ukraine, but also consider themselves as both rooted in Russian culture and heirs of a European Protestant tradition. The main values in the core of their memory discourse are holiness, spirituality, suffering for faith and survival of the community in a hostile society. Celebrations of faith heroes and martyrs are especially popular among those who belong to the former underground wing of this denomination. A more recent trend is the celebration of the history of local congregations. As ECBs perceive threats to their traditional way of life from the West and the national liberalism of today, they become more fundamentalist and persistent in its preservation and protection. Ultimately, in order to defend their cultural space from ‘immoral’ influences, they have become more politically active and have contributed to conservative and anti-liberal agendas on the national level in Ukraine.     

The Activities of The Scandinavian Societies

Freud's concept of the death instinct has given rise to many different interpretations which have often been contradictory. It is in fact already possible to discern two diametrically opposite meanings of this concept in Freud's work from 1920—Beyond the Pleasure Principle—in which he first introduced the concept of the death instinct. In this paper, it is argued that both these meanings are relevant in describing psychical life, although only one of these meanings actually qualifies for the concept “death instinct”. Beyond the Pleasure Principle was written in order to try to understand some everyday, as well as clinical phenomena which could not be explained by the so-called pleasure principle. Freud postulated something beyond the pleasure principle, which initially seemed to have to do with binding energy. I will preserve this idea and attempt to develop it within the context of a phenomenological analysis of time. The temporalization of the subject involves a very basic affirmation of existence, in that the subject experiences something constant, something that can be said to possess the quality of a gestalt. I propose that that which is beyond the pleasure principle—this binding of energy—should be understood as the opposite of the idea of a primordial death instinct striving towards death. In this case, that which is beyond the pleasure principle reflects an original affirmation of existence, which could be said to correspond to Freud's first meaning of the death instinct. The second meaning—for which the name “death instinct” seems to be applicable—concerns the discharge of energy, which from a temporal point of view shows itself as a tendency to dissolution. The concept of the death instinct in its various meanings is discussed in connection with phenomenological reflections on time, which is a different approach from Freud's attempt to ground the death instinct in biology.