Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide have put lockdowns in place to prevent the virus from spreading. Evidence shows that lockdown measures can affect mental health; it is, therefore, important to identify the psychological characteristics making individuals more vulnerable. The present study aimed, first, to identify, through a cluster analysis, the psychological attributes that characterize individuals with similar psychological responses to the COVID-19 home confinement; second, to investigate whether different psychological characteristics, such as personality traits, alexithymia, and resilience, specifically (...) influence anxiety, stress, and depression, depending on the scope of the confinement. We analyzed data from 393 participants who completed an online survey on their experiences during two different phases of the Italian lockdown, characterized by more or less strict measures of confinement. Two clusters were identified which included participants reporting a better and worse emotional response to the lockdown, respectively. Individuals in the −ER group showed lower emotional stability, resilience, and higher alexithymia. Moreover, even if lifting part of the restrictions decreased psychological distress among all participants, a reduction in perceived stress was observed only among individuals with high resilience. Finally, personality traits, alexithymia, and resilience differently affected depression, anxiety, and stress. Our results suggest that different psychological interventions should be planned depending on the context: mental health professionals should focus on enhancing the individuals’ coping strategies to alleviate stress in emergencies, while long-term intervention aiming at alleviating anxiety and depressive symptoms should focus on alexithymic tendencies and personality constructs. (shrink)

The paper examines the attainment and adequacy of informed consent in an ethnographic–discursive study on gynecological visits involving doctors, patients, and nurses. Starting from a theoretical discussion on informed consent and the principles upon which it relies, the paper highlights the changes and the adjustments that these principle undergo in practice, from the planning of the research till later stages of the researcher’s fieldwork and data recording. Analyses first focus on the informed consent as a written artifact and show how (...) the description of the study indexes the prospective participants’ identity, as well as, it works in favor of the researcher’s (or, other institutional representatives such as the managers of the Hospital) accountability. Then, the authors focus on instances of audio and video recorded doctor–patient–nurse interactions in which information is reformulated by the doctors, in such a way as to anticipate and/or respond to the nurses’ and patients’ concerns with regards the project (such as, the risk of exposure to the public). The analysis of these episodes carry ethical implications, in that they alert that patients, nurses, and doctors may be not equally knowledgeable about the project and that they can be conceded unequal opportunities to have their interpretations and identity performances acknowledged and inscribed on the tape. (shrink)

Apresenta as reflexões do filósofo Espinosa sobre a liberdade política, analisando dois dos principais alvos de seu pensamento: o primeiro é a determinação do regime político mais favorável à paz, à segurança e à liberdade dos cidadãos ; O segundo é o exame dos principais obstáculos a esse regime.

Although disgust is recognized as a common and prominent emotion in healthcare, little is known about how healthcare professionals understand, experience and conceptualize disgust. The aim of the study was to gain an in‐depth understanding of how nursing and midwifery students experience, understand and cope with disgust in their clinical work. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Six participants (all women: two nursing students, four midwifery students) from a university in the South of England were (...) interviewed. Four superordinate themes with eight subthemes were identified. Overall, findings suggest that participants experience both moral and physical disgust; however, they find it difficult to talk about and use other terms to describe their experience. Findings are discussed through the lens of social identity theory, to understand the relevance of professional identity and how this might further maintain the disgust taboo. The strategies participants have developed in order to cope with disgust are explored and understood within the current healthcare climate. Future research should focus on ways of addressing the experience of disgust by healthcare professionals in order to improve the quality of care provided, especially in the climate of the COVID‐19 crisis. (shrink)

A spatial logic is a formal language interpreted over any class of structures featuring geometrical entities and relations, broadly construed. In the past decade, spatial logics have attracted much attention in response to developments in such diverse fields as Artificial Intelligence, Database Theory, Physics, and Philosophy. The aim of this handbook is to create, for the first time, a systematic account of the field of spatial logic. The book comprises a general introduction, followed by fourteen chapters by invited authors. Each (...) chapter provides a self-contained overview of its topic, describing the principal results obtained to date, explaining the methods used to obtain them, and listing the most important open problems. Jointly, these contributions constitute a comprehensive survey of this rapidly expanding subject. (shrink)

A tradição judaico-cristã crê na existência de um ser supremo transcendente que, por um ato de vontade, cria o mundo e os seres humanos, dando a estes o livre-arbítrio para escolher entre o bem e o mal. QUando Espinosa (1632-77) afirma: "Deus, ou seja, a Natureza", ele subverte essa crença. DEmonstra que o ser absoluto é imanente ao universo e que todas as coisas são efeitos necessários de sua ação.SÃo inúmeras as interpretações da obra de Espinosa; alguns consideram até que, (...) para ele, a liberdade humana é impossível. NEste livro que é fruto de mais de trinta anos de estudos, Marilena Chaui opõe-se a tal visão e mostra que a imanência de Deus à Natureza é a condição necessária para a existência dos seres individuais e para a sua liberdade.PRêmio Jabuti 2000 de Melhor Livro de Ciências Humanas e Educação. (shrink)

Analisando o que se poderia chamar de "sistema medo-esperança" das paixões humanas e seu papel na constituição das sociedades, este estudo busca mostrar que, para Espinosa, a paz é virtude política, porque é a capacidade de enfrentar a contigência e dobrá-la a favor dos homens. Pode-se esboçar, assim, uma resposta a um problema apontado com frequência entre os intérpretes: a finalidade da vida política seria a liberdade, como quer o Tratado teológico-político, ou segurança, como mostra o Tratado político?

A correspondência de Espinosa com Tschimhaus,` iniciada pouco antes da publicação do Tratado teológico-político e terminada alguns meses antes da morte do filósofo, é de marcada importância não só por conter os últimos escritos de Espinosa, mas sobretudo porque nela alguns dos temas mais importantes de sua filosofia são discutidos - nas primeiras, a relação entre necessidade e liberdade; nas seguintes, a distinção entre idéia verdadeira e adequada; nas últimas, o infinito atual, a possibilidade da exposição geométrica da metafísica e (...) de uma física a priori. Neste ensaio, mencionaremos a presença implícita de Leibniz nas últimas cartas de Tschirnhaus, mas trataremos apenas da primeira troca de cartas, cujo assunto é a divergência entre Tschirnhaus e Espinosa no tocante à liberdade. (shrink)

O negócio é assim: o caboclo vai casar. Então ele resolve convocar os companheiros pra ajudar a fazer sua casinha de sapé. Sai mais cedo da feira, vai pra bodega do Severino, lá onde costuma guardar sua peixeira. Os amigos vão chegando e ele explica.: - “Tô querendo casá. Já inté falei com o padre. Vai sê de hoje a oito dias. Tô convidando vocês pra me ajudá a levantá minha casinha amanhã que é sabo (sábado). Já tá tudo lá: (...) os caibro, os cipó, as vara, o barreiro... Vô matá um bode e fazê um pirão pra nóis comê – (a buchada é por conta de dona Josenice). Assim que a casinha ficar de pé a gente faz um forró pra encarcá bem o chão da sala.”. (shrink)

... É quase uma aldeia onde moro - a Barra do Jucu. Vim em busca de mim mesma (e penso que me encontrei) numa casa simples em rua de chão de terra, na paz tranquila do canto dos passarinhos, nas pegadas beira-mar.

Nuvens baixas, pesadas, sombrias vestem o dia de melancolia... mas nem sempre está no céu que nos cobre a iminência de um temporal - por vezes está numa sensação, num presságio, numa angústia sem nome - ou que traz todos os nomes: inquietação, esgotamento, ansiedade, impotência, desolação, saudades que se enredam no poente do inesquecimento.

Linguagem e liberdade: o contradiscurso de Baruch Espinosa -- Três em uma (considerações sobre o Cândido de Voltaire) -- Experiência do pensamento (homenagem a Maurice Merleau-Ponty).

Systems evolve in order to adjust and survive. The paper’s contribution is that this evolvement is inadequate without an evolutionary telos. It is argued that without the presence of self-destruction in multiple levels of our existence and surroundings, our survival would have been impossible. This paper recognises an appreciation of auto-catastrophe at the cell level, in human attitudes (both as an individual and in societies), and extended to Earth and out to galaxies. Auto-Catastrophic Theory combines evolution with auto-catastrophic behaviours and (...) innovative machinery by offering new themes of understanding their merging such as (a) protogenic and deuterogenic auto-catastrophic processes, (b) protogenic and deuterogenic survival processes, and (c) ‘alive’, partially ‘alive’, and non-‘alive’ systems. The value of self-destruction relies on a numerical stability within a system and correlational relationships between systems. Auto-Catastrophic Theory provides novel justifications why artificial intelligence: (a) is crucial to overcome the extinction of humanity (via H+), (b) is crucial to offer indirect survival of humanity (by saving its history), and (c) is at the same time a threat for humanity. These novel justifications and themes, developed by combining evolution with catastrophe as well as innovative machinery, expand our knowledge of how best to handle fresh challenges ahead. (shrink)

This contribution intends to explore patients’ lived experience, with a focus on the temporal dimension. On the basis of a qualitative study that led me to interview persons with Parkinson’s disease, caregivers, and medical professionals, I develop an empirical and philosophical investigation of the temporalities surrounding the implementation of deep brain stimulation in Greece. I raise the issue of access to DBS medical care, and show how distinct temporalities are implied when the patients face such a matter: that of linear (...) time, linked with the medical discourse, the bureaucratic time linked to administrative and financial hurdles in the implementation and maintenance of DBS, and the technological time of the body/technology fusion. I consider initially the impact of technology and health care settings on the lived experience of patients and the enactment of multiple bodies which are interrelated with the social world. I then expand my analysis in order to show that this experience cannot be a solipsistic one, or specific to one physician/patient relationship. It is fully socially shaped. (shrink)

Entrevista de Marilena Chaui conce­dida a Silvana de Souza Ramos, no dia 08 de setembro de 2022, nas dependências do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB/USP), instituição que abriga o Fundo Gilda de Mello e Souza.

We investigate the major mathematical theories of space from a modal standpoint: topology, affine geometry, metric geometry, and vector algebra. This allows us to see new fine-structure in spatial patterns which suggests analogies across these mathematical theories in terms of modal, temporal, and conditional logics. Throughout the modal walk through space, expressive power is analyzed in terms of language design, bisimulations, and correspondence phenomena. The result is both unification across the areas visited, and the uncovering of interesting new questions.

Negli ultimi vent’anni si è instaurato nella filosofia analitica un clima confusamente naturalistico, in cui non sempre si è distinto tra il progetto di riportare ricerche tradizionalmente filosofiche entro l’ambito delle scienze naturali e l’idea che la filosofia stessa sia “continua con la scienza”, cioè che non ci sia una distinzione di principio tra ricerche scientifiche e ricerche filosofiche. Questa seconda idea si contrappone alla tradizionale immagine, che vuole la filosofia come un’i...

Wittgenstein and Quine are usually regarded as standing in opposition to each other, as the former is an antinaturalist who defends the separation of science and philosophy while the latter naturalistically insists on the continuity of science and philosophy. On the other hand, they both claim to provide an analysis of our conceptual scheme “from within” and reject the very idea of a first philosophy. Wittgenstein’s investigations take normativity into account, whereas Quine appears to be uninterested. Can naturalism, in some (...) form, countenance normativity or is it bound to be reductionist about it? I suggest that Wittgenstein’s conceptual analysis should be read as exemplifying a form of non-reductionist ontological naturalism that sees man as a natural species, while admitting that the normativity that inheres in the rules we follow cannot be understood on the basis of natural science. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Quine are usually regarded as standing in opposition to each other, as the former is an antinaturalist who defends the separation of science and philosophy while the latter naturalistically insists on the continuity of science and philosophy. On the other hand, they both claim to provide an analysis of our conceptual scheme “from within” and reject the very idea of a first philosophy. Wittgenstein’s investigations take normativity into account, whereas Quine appears to be uninterested. Can naturalism, in some (...) form, countenance normativity or is it bound to be reductionist about it? I suggest that Wittgenstein’s conceptual analysis should be read as exemplifying a form of non-reductionist ontological naturalism that sees man as a natural species, while admitting that the normativity that inheres in the rules we follow cannot be understood on the basis of natural science. (shrink)

Negli ultimi vent’anni si è instaurato nella filosofia analitica un clima confusamente naturalistico, in cui non sempre si è distinto tra il progetto di riportare ricerche tradizionalmente filosofiche entro l’ambito delle scienze naturali e l’idea che la filosofia stessa sia “continua con la scienza”, cioè che non ci sia una distinzione di principio tra ricerche scientifiche e ricerche filosofiche. Questa seconda idea si contrappone alla tradizionale immagine, che vuole la filosofia come un’i...

This paper explores the use of video news releases (VNRs) without source disclosure from legal and ethical perspectives. In light of current regulatory debates regarding VNRs, the paper first examines whether journalists' use of corporate VNRs without source disclosure violates FCC regulations. It then questions the ethics of using such VNRs by examining the current code of ethics for both the public relations practitioners creating VNRs and the news organizations airing them. The paper uses the ethical construct of transparency to (...) further examine the ethics of VNR production and exhibition without source disclosure. It finds that regardless of whether the use of VNRs without source disclosure violates current sponsorship rules, the use of such VNRs not only violates codes of ethics but also transparency, which includes values such as accountability, credibility, trust, respect, truth and honesty, reason, freedom, dignity, and duty. (shrink)

John Krosbein is thought to have been active in the second half of fourteenth century and as such his commentary on De plantis is an isolated case, which lengthens the Pseudo-Aristotelian text's re...

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 46 - 70 In this article, I analyze the idea of “stepping into the void”, which can be traced in the thinking of both Proclus and Damascius, but which sets their perspectives apart. Thus, I show how Proclus warns us that to speak about the absolute principle, taking it as an object of thought, is a negative “stepping into the void” that should be avoided. On the contrary, I show that Damascius starts from (...) this warning and tries to prove that the only adequate manner in which we can trace the absolute principle and approach it is precisely through “stepping into the void,” yet, this time, in a positive sense, as a constant attempt to understand that the principle is an absolute void which reverses our discourse. (shrink)

The human brain does not use more energy than the smaller brains of animals of comparable corporal weight. Uniquely, human functions localized largely in parts of the human brain that show greatest size increase over other animals may be mediated primarily by nonsynaptic neurotransmission, with reduced energy cost per kilogram of brain. This may affect the energetic constraints on evolution.

ObjectiveThere have been increased efforts to implement medical ethics curricula at the student and resident levels; however, practising physicians are often left unconsidered. Therefore, we sought to pilot an ethics and professionalism curriculum for faculty in obstetrics and gynaecology to remedy gaps in the formal, informal and hidden curriculum in medical education.MethodsAn ethics curriculum was developed for faculty within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at a tertiary care, academic hospital. During the one-time, 4-hour, mandatory in-person session, the participants voluntarily (...) completed the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, Handoff Clinical Evaluation Exercise, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and overall course evaluation. Patient satisfaction survey scores in both the hospital and ambulatory settings were compared before and after the curriculum.ResultsTwenty-eight faculty members attended the curriculum. Overall, respondents reported less burnout and performed at the same level or better in terms of patient handoff than the original studies validating the instruments. Faculty rated the professionalism behaviours as well as teaching of professionalism much lower at our institution than the validation study. There was no change in patient satisfaction after the curriculum. However, overall, the course was well received as meeting its objectives, being beneficial and providing new tools to assess professionalism.ConclusionThis pilot study suggests that an ethics curriculum can be developed for practising physicians that is mindful of pragmatic concerns while still meeting its objectives. Further study is needed regarding long term and objective improvements in ethics knowledge, impact on the education of trainees and improvement in the care of patients as a result of a formal curriculum for faculty. (shrink)