The number of people who survive critical illness is increasing. In parallel, a growing body of literature reveals a broad range of side-effects following intensive care treatment. Today, more attention is needed to improve the quality of survival. Based on nine individual stories of illness experiences given by participants in two focus groups and one individual interview, this paper elaborates how former critically ill patients craft and recraft their personal stories throughout their illness trajectory. The analysis was conducted from a (...) phenomenological perspective and led to the meaning structure; a quest to find oneself after critical illness. In this structure, illness represented a breakdown of the participants’ lives, forcing them to develop a new understanding of themselves. Despite acute illness, they felt safe in hospital. Coming home, however, meant a constant balancing between health and illness, and being either in or out of control. To gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ narratives of survival, the meaning structure was developed from a phenomenological life world perspective, Heidegger’s concept of homelikeness and Arthur Frank’s typologies of illness narratives. In conclusion listening to and acknowledging the patients’ lived experiences of critical illness may support the patient efforts to establish the newly defined self and hence be vital for recovery. Phenomenology is one approach facilitating care tailored to the patients’ lived experience of critical illness and its aftermaths. (shrink)

A gas in a box is perhaps the most important model system studied in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Usually, studies focus on the gas, whereas the box merely serves as an idealized confinement. The present article focuses on the box as the central object and develops a thermodynamic theory by treating the geometric degrees of freedom of the box as the degrees of freedom of a thermodynamic system. Applying standard mathematical methods to the thermody- namics of an empty box allows (...) equations with the same structure as those of cosmology and classical and quantum mechanics to be derived. The simple model system of an empty box is shown to have interesting connections to classical mechanics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of time when living with severe incurable disease. A phenomenological and philosophical approach of description and deciphering were used. In our modern health care system there is an on-going focus on utilizing and recording the use of time, but less focus on the patient’s experience of time, which highlights the need to explore the patients’ experiences, particularly when life is vulnerable and time is limited. The empirical (...) data consisted of 26 open-ended interviews with 23 participants receiving palliative care at home, in hospital or in a nursing home in Norway. The theoretical frameworks used are mainly based upon K. Martinsens philosophy of care, K. E. Løgstrup phenomenological philosophy, in addition to C. Saunders’ hospice philosophy, L. Feigenberg’s thanatology and U. Qvarnström’s research exploring patient’s reactions to impending death. Experience of time is described as being a movement that moves the individual towards death in the field of opposites, and deciphered to be a universal, but a typical and unique experience emerging through three integrated levels: Sense of time; where time is described as a movement that is proceeding at varying speeds. Relate totime; where the awareness of limited life changes the understanding of time to be more existential. Being in time; where limited time seems to clarify the basic living conditions and phenomena of life. The existence of life when the prospect of death is present is characterized by emotional swings that move within polarizing dimensions which is reflected in the experience of time illustrated as the moves of the pendulum in a grandfather clock. The diversity of the experience of time is oscillating between going fast or slow, being busy or calm, being unpredictable but predictable, safe or unsafe and between being good or bad, depending on the embodied situation of the individual. (shrink)

This book provides a thorough introduction to research ethics and ethically responsible research practice in a research organization. It is relevant for all research areas. Morality, however, is not something one can just “learn”. Therefore, the book is written with a different basic tone than regular textbooks, so that it makes the reader aware of how morality plays a role in the various daily tasks one has in a research organization. The book conveys knowledge and experience material about the society’s (...) and the research community’s view of how different ethical issues should be solved. From this, the reader will acquire the basic ethical principles they need to know and understand and be aware of, in order to be qualified in an ethical context as employees of a research organization, and to be able to deal with common ethical issues associated with research. (shrink)

In Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems, leading figures in the fields of virtue ethics and ethics come together to present the first ...

We argue that people may resist temptations not only with the aim of acquiring more self-control, but also because they want to convince others that they are patient and already possess self-control.

Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

Quantum Physics suggests that life in the world is about engaging with and entangling in its waves. Its concept of complementarity also makes possible the affirmation of God's consistent actions in the universe without violating Scientific findings, an affirmation that offers resources for dealing with life's waves.

First published in 1962, contains the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. It sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well- known distinction of performative utterances from statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide (...) variety of philosophical problems. (shrink)

It was proposed that the data from Monte Carlo statistical investigations be subjected to analysis of variance methods rather than the conventional techniques of tabling, graphing, and inspecting the data. Two examples in which analysis of variance methods were applied to published Monte Carlo studies were presented. It was suggested that balanced factorial designs should be used whenever possible in Monte Carlo studies so that analysis of variance methods would be directly applicable. Finally, three advantages of analysis of variance methods (...) over conventional techniques were described and analysis of variance methods were contrasted with a possible alternative analytical method, multiple regression analysis. (shrink)

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued that, the property that does the work in explaining the (...) possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the significant (...) disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists. (shrink)

Our interpretive resources enable us to make sense of, navigate, and communicate about our shared world. These resources not only carve the world up into categories, but also guide how we, individually and collectively, are oriented towards it. In this thesis, I examine how these resources, and the dispositions they guide, may be harmful. A vital kind of interpretive resources are frames, which equip us with unified perspectives on the world. Perspectives are suites of open-ended interpretive (inquisitive, attentional, inferential, evaluative, (...) and affective) dispositions. Frames thereby guide how we interpret, respond to, and navigate the world. I show that these perspectives are epistemically powerful and indispensable. I argue that flawed perspectives, and the distorting frames that produce them, are deeply pernicious and I examine their relationship to oppression. (shrink)

Purpose. Romanticism as a movement developed in Germany, where, becoming the philosophy of time in the 18th-19th centuries, spread to all European countries. The "mobility" of the Romantic doctrine, its diversity, sometimes contradictory views, attitude to man as a free, harmonious, creative person led to the susceptibility of this movement by ethnic groups, different in nature and mentality. Its ideas found a wide response in Ukraine with its "cordocentric" type of culture in the early nineteenth century. Since the peculiarity of (...) "Ukrainian Romanticism" was its "literary-centric" nature, the purpose of this study is to analyse and comprehend the place of man in the national philosophy and literature of this period. Accordingly, the main tasks of the work are as follows: to determine the main features, the nature of Ukrainian Romanticism; to trace the main vectors of comprehension and image of man in the literature of this time. Theoretical basis. The ideas of European Romanticism were creatively rethought and assimilated during the emergence of new Ukrainian literature. It provided samples of highly artistic works, unique names of talented writers – creators and thinkers, who in their works reflected the philosophy of time. Based on the works of F. Schlegel, partly E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers, Romanticism in the Ukrainian humanities, in terms of philosophy, culturology, as well as at the intersection with literature, was studied by T. Bovsunivska, Y. Hrybkova, S. Efremov, N. Kalenichenko, S. Kozak, T. Komarynets, D. Nalyvayko, Y. Nakhlik, I. Ogorodnyk, V. Ogorodnyk, A. Sinitsyna, D. Chyzhevsky, M. Yatsenko, E. Kyryliuk, M. Biletsky, D. Dontsov, S. Efremov, G. Kostyuk, S. Krymsky, Y. Sherekh and others. Originality. The authors of the article prove that Romanticism in Ukraine, being "literary-centric" inherently, having absorbed the main ideas and features of European Romanticism, has its own features and vectors of formation and development. Man in this kind of movement, thanks to the means of art, appears very clearly as a spiritually rich, sensitive, vulnerable and strong person. For him or her, the highest value is freedom, the ability to make freely independent fateful decisions. Conclusions. Ukrainian writers, reflecting the philosophical ideas of Romanticism, saw in man a harmonious combination of "natural" and "social", through which he indirectly carries out his own national existence. In addition to the objective realities of the external world, in their works, Romantic writers appeal to the subjective, internal, spiritual, "ideal" world of the hero, who interacts with reality through his own system of values. At each level of development of the humanities and methodology of cognition, this allows a new reading of these works. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

This chapter presents an opinionated account of how to understand the contributions of experience, especially with respect to the role of cognitive science, in developing and assessing metaphysical theories of reality. I develop a methodological basis for the idea that, independently of work in experimental philosophy focused on explications of concepts, contemporary metaphysical theories with a role for experiential evidence can be fruitfully connected to empirical work in psychology, especially cognitive science. My argument is not that cognitive science should replace (...) the metaphysician’s use of a priori theorizing and ordinary experience as a guide to metaphysical reality. Rather, we should enrich our perspective on a priori theorizing and ordinary experience as a guide to metaphysical reality by drawing on any relevant work in cognitive science. (shrink)

Essays devoted to the work of the late Neil Wilson, Canadian philosopher and contributor to the field of semantic analysis that emerged from the fusion of logic, pragmatism, and ontology. Many of the essays in this volume take their initial inspiration from Wilson's seminal work Substances Without Substrata.