Recreational Drugs European Network (ReDNet) project aims to use the Psychonaut Web Mapping Project database (Psychonaut Web Mapping Group, 2009) containing novel psychoactive compounds usually not mentioned in the scientific literature and thus unknown to clinicians as a unique source of information. The database will be used to develop an integrated ICT prevention approach targeted at vulnerable individuals and focused on novel synthetic and herbal compounds and combinations. Particular care will be taken in keeping the health professionals working directly with (...) young people showing problematic behaviors regularly updated in terms of novel compounds and combinations as well. A user-friendly project website will be developed aimed primarily at delivering the information/prevention approaches, but will also be a way of communicating with project partners and relevant stakeholders (e.g. thematic forum facilities, instant messages, blogs, video chat, wikiblog, newsletters distributed via mailing list). The website will support various ICT prevention tools, including an SMS alert service. Different areas and sections will be aimed specifically at the different target groups. -/- . (shrink)

İbn Sînâ, Yeter Sebep İlkesi’ni (YSİ), yani her şeyin bir sebebi olduğu ve sebepsiz hiçbir varlığın var olamayacağı iddiasını savunan modern dönem öncesi filozoflarından biridir. YSİ’nin sonuçlarından biri de zorunlulukçuluktur (necessitarianism); yani gerçekte var olan her şeyin aynı zamanda zorunlu olarak var olduğu iddiasıdır. Bu fikre göre sebepler zincirinin her bir üyesi kendinden önceki sebepler tarafından belirlenir. Dolayısıyla YSİ, olayların başka türlü de olabileceğini telkin eden insan sezgisine karşı çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmadaki amacım, İbn Sînâ sonrası yazarların insan iradesini dışlamak suretiyle (...) YSİ’nin zorunlulukçu sonuçlarını hafifletmeye çalışıp çalışmadıklarını araştırmaktır. Nasîrüddin Tûsî’nin (ö. 672/1274) Cebr ve Kader adlı Farsça risalesi ile Tecrîdü’l-i‘tikâd adlı kelâm kitabı arasında bir karşılaştırma yapmaya odaklanacağım. Bu konuyu seçmemin öncelikli sebebi, insanların eylemlerinin bağımsız fâilleri olduklarını sezgisel olarak bildiklerine dair Tûsî’nin iddialarıdır ki bu, YSİ‘nin evrensel uygulanabilirliği ile çelişiyor gibi görünmektedir. Tûsî’nin özgür irade konusunda, metinlerin karakterine ve yazıldıkları döneme bağlı olarak, bazen İbn Sînâ ile tutarlılık arzeden bazen de Mu‘tezile’ye angaje olan farklı görüşler benimsediğini savunacağım. Tûsî’nin, bazen nedensel olarak etkin olmamasına rağmen insan özgürlüğüne nasıl yer bıraktığını göstereceğim. O, insan özgürlüğünü, insanın karşı karşıya kaldığı fiziksel veya ilahî diğer belirlenim türlerinden bağımsız olarak hareket edebilen farklı bir belirlenim türü olarak anlar. Genel olarak bu mesele, Tûsî’nin İbn Sînâ felsefesine ya da Şiî kelâmına bağlılığını test etmekte ve hatta onu bazı eserlerinde İbn Sînâ’nın bilgi görüşüne karşı bir duruş sergilemeye zorlamaktadır. (shrink)

SUBJECTIVITY AND DIFFERENCE: BUTLER AND BRAIDOTTI Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotti are recognized as the inheritors of postmodern tradition, in their ideas deconstruct the myth of a stable and an unequivocally characterized identity. Both, Butler and Braidotti express the belief, that human being cannot get rid of defining her/his own subjectivity. Therefore, Braidotti and Butler have created original concepts of the subjectivity. Both, Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotii, represent the third wave of feminism, therefore they begin the discussion on the (...) subjectivity from similar initial assumptions: the end of "I/self" understood in a metaphysical way, the definition of a new subjectivity of women. Judith Butler drawing on J.L. Austin’s philosophical achievements and the theory of performative acts of speech (performative utterance), creates an innovative concept of the subjectivity, which is established by/through performative acts. Rosi Braidotti is focused on the revision of the idea of the woman and the constitution of new women’s subjectivity. Braidotti conceives woman as a nomadic entity, who is ambiguous, embodied, cultural, etc. (shrink)

This article proposes a theoretical reflection on the articulation between teachers’ conceptions of particular knowledge objects on the one hand, and their professional action about these objects on the other. We will illustrate our point through two studies carried out in France and in Quebec in the field of the teaching of socially acute questions (SAQs). The first study focuses on the link between the social representations (Abric, 1994) of sustainable development (SD) among future teachers of humanities and natural sciences (...) and their practices with regard to education for sustainable development (ESD).The second study focuses on the relationship between a science teacher’s knowledge about the natural sciences (NS) as an object of knowledge and as an object of instruction. In order to enrich our reflection, we present an original operationalization of the concept of teaching practices, whose different dimensions (finalized, technical, interactive, affective) are put in relation with the concepts of social representations and relationships to knowledges. This perspective and theoretical reflection allows us to identify crossings and tensions between beliefs and teaching practices with regard to the SAQs in reference to the transformative-sociocritical and transmissive-positivist approaches of ESD. (shrink)

© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan pathogen in the phylum Apicomplexa that resides within an intracellular parasitophorous vacuole that is selectively permeable to small molecules through unidentified mechanisms. We have identified GRA17 as a Toxoplasma-secreted protein that localizes to the parasitophorous vacuole membrane and mediates passive transport of small molecules across the PVM. GRA17 is related to the putative Plasmodium translocon protein EXP2 and conserved across PV-residing Apicomplexa. The PVs of GRA17-deficient parasites have aberrant morphology, reduced permeability to (...) small molecules, and structural instability. GRA17-deficient parasites proliferate slowly and are avirulent in mice. These GRA17-deficient phenotypes are rescued by complementation with Plasmodium EXP2. GRA17 functions synergistically with a related protein, GRA23. Exogenous expression of GRA17 or GRA23 alters the membrane conductance properties of Xenopus oocytes in a manner consistent with a large non-selective pore. Thus, GRA17 and GRA23 provide a molecular basis for PVM permeability and nutrient access. (shrink)

L’article est consacré à la conception de processio et d’explicatio dans un contexte historique et doctrinal du néoplatonisme de l’école d’Athènes et puis dans le néoplatonisme chrétien médiéval. C’est à Thierry de Chartres que le Cusain a emprunté les termes-clefs : complicatio-explicatio décrivant la relation de la Cause Première et de la multitude de ce qui en procède, aussi bien que expliquant la relation parmi l’immanence et la transcendance Divine.

L’article examine la mise en scène théâtrale de la honte dans les travaux de Sartre, Lacan et Bourdieu. Nous partons de l’hypothèse que la représentation de la honte est confrontée à un paradoxe : D’une part, cette émotion semble se refuser à une mise en scène. D’autre part, elle provoque un jeu de masques et une multitude des représentations fortement théâtrales. Pour comprendre comment ce paradoxe introduit un aspect esthétique dans l’expérience de l’émotion, nous abordons une triple théâtralité concernant l’aspect (...) de la mascarade, le regard esthétique, et le clivage du sujet honteux. (shrink)

By the late 1920s in Europe new art directions were regarded as already completed phenomena, a part of “avant-garde tradition.” Such views were expressed by Jean Arp and El Lissitzky’s in their book Kuntismen, and by Amédée Ozenfant’s in Art. Bilan des arts modernes en France. Similar opinions were also voiced by Jan Brzękowski, a Polish poet and critic, who regarded this time as a period of “establishing certain values” rather than new breakthroughs. In this article I discuss Brzękowski’s strategies (...) as a spokesman of modern art, an intermediary between the Parisian artworld and Polish avant-garde, an author connected with constructivism, and also with surrealist circles in Paris. My main focus is his magazine “Sztuka Współczesna – L’Art Contemporain” and his series of articles “Mileages,” in which he summarizes the developments of modern art. Conscious of the “wearing up” of avant-garde ideas and critical about seeking “novelty” for its own sake, Brzękowski tried to establish a progressive position based on the idea of formal discipline and creative construction. While rejecting a mimetic conception of art, he argued for abstract artistic form that would be “anchored to the bottom of life,” thus emphasizing the interplay of abstract and figurative elements and their dialectic. (shrink)

It is largely uncontroversial that to love some person or object is (among other things) to care about that person or object. Love and caring, however, are importantly different attitudes. We do not love every person or object about which we care. In this work, we critically analyze extant accounts of how love differs from mere caring, and we propose an alternate view in order to better capture this distinction.

There has been a growing interest in research concerning memory modification technologies (MMTs) in recent years. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to explore the prospect of controllable and intentional modification of human memory. One of the technologies with the greatest potential to this end is optogenetics—an invasive neuromodulation technique involving the use of light to control the activity of individual brain cells. It has recently shown the potential to modify specific long-term memories in animal models in ways not yet possible (...) with other MMTs. As the therapeutic potential of optogenetics has already prompted approval of the first human trials, it is especially important and timely to consider the opportunities and dangers this technology may entail. In this article, we focus on possible consequences of optogenetics as an MMT by analyzing fundamental threats potentially associated with memory modifications: the potential disruption of personality and authenticity. (shrink)

Optogenetics is an invasive neuromodulation technology involving the use of light to control the activity of individual neurons. Even though optogenetics is a relatively new neuromodulation tool whose various implications have not yet been scrutinized, it has already been approved for its first clinical trials in humans. As optogenetics is being intensively investigated in animal models with the aim of developing novel brain stimulation treatments for various neurological and psychiatric disorders, it appears crucial to consider both the opportunities and dangers (...) such therapies may offer. In this review, we focus on the memory-modifying potential of optogenetics, investigating what it is capable of and how it differs from other memory modification technologies. We then outline the safety challenges that need to be addressed before optogenetics can be used in humans. Finally, we re-examine crucial neuroethical concerns expressed in regard to other MMTs in the light of optogenetics and address those that appear to be unique to the memory-modifying potential of optogenetic technology. (shrink)

Due to advances in medicine, a malignant neoplasm is a chronic disease that can be treated for a lot of patients for many years. It may lead to profound changes in everyday life and may induce fear of life. The ability to adjust to a new situation may depend on temperamental traits and stress coping strategies. The research presented in this paper explores the relationships between quality of life, PTSD symptoms, temperamental traits, and stress coping in a sample of patients (...) diagnosed with cancer. One hundred and twenty nine participants aged 24–81 years, 69 females diagnosed with breast cancer and 60 males diagnosed with lung cancer completed Formal Characteristics of Behavior – Temperament Inventory, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, PTSD Inventory, and Quality of life SF-36 questionnaire. Higher level of emotional reactivity and higher level of perseveration was associated with lower emotional quality of life. Higher level of emotion oriented-coping and higher level of avoidant-distracted coping was associated with higher level of PTSD symptoms. Emotion-oriented coping and avoidant-distracted coping are ineffective in dealing with stress in the case of patients diagnosed with cancer, because they are associated with a higher level of PTSD symptoms. The significance of temperamental traits for quality of life in the situation of the patients is marginal. Control of specific factors concerned with current health and treatment status is needed the future research. (shrink)

[A] man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibilities, moral being…. And it is here … that you may find ways to touch him.—A. R. Luria1.

The purpose of the article is to contribute to the discussion about the relevance of existential issues in contemporary education. Analysis presented in the paper is related to the problems of self-awareness, becoming oneself and self-development. First, the author begins by depicting the meaning of human existence in the light of philosophy. The following aspects have been analyzed: being true to one’s own beliefs and values, recognizing personal truth, making existential choices and finding one’s own voice. A special attention is (...) paid to the language as an essential, constitutive element of being. Second, the article attempts to consider some educational implications resulting from the existential approach to education. Some of the issues discussed are learning to philosophize and to discover meaning, the concept of encounter in education and the role of language in self-development. While describing them the author indicates that the ignoring of crucial existential questions in education contributes to spiritual vacuity in life of young people and reduces educational thinking merely to instrumental, pragmatic problems concerning qualification and transfer of communicative skills. (shrink)

Tributes to Professor Andrzej Kopcewicz - Agnieszka Salska New Media Effects on Traditional News Sources: A Review of the State of American Newspapers - Richard Profozich Review of The Body, ed. by Ilona Dobosiewicz and Jacek Gutorow - Grzegorz Kość “Taste good iny?”: Images of and from Australian Indigenous Literature - Jared Thomas Speaks with Teresa Podemska-Abt Engaging the “Forbidden Texts” of Philosophy - Pamela Sue Anderson Talks to Alison Jasper.

Although there is much research on the relationships of corporate social responsibility and employee-related outcomes, a systematic and quantitative integration of research findings is needed to substantiate and broaden our knowledge. A meta-analysis allows the comparison of the relations of different types of CSR on several different outcomes, for example to learn what type of CSR is most important to employees. From a theoretical perspective, social identity theory is the most prominent theoretical approach in CSR research, so we aim to (...) investigate identification as a mediator of the relationship between CSR and employee-related outcomes in a meta-analytical mediation model. This meta-analysis synthesizes research findings on the relationship between employees' perception of CSR (people, planet, and profit) and employee-related outcomes (identification, engagement, organizational attractiveness, turnover (intentions), OCB, commitment, and job satisfaction), thereby distinguishing attitudes and behavior. A total of 143 studies (N= 89,396) were included in the meta-analysis which was conducted according to the methods by Schmidt and Hunter (except of the meta-analytical structural equation model). Mean effect sizes for the relationship between CSR and employee-related attitudes and behaviors were medium-sized to large. For attitudes, the relationships were stronger than for behavior. For specific types of CSR, average effect sizes were large. Identification mediated the relation between CSR and commitment, job satisfaction, and OCB, respectively. Based on our results, we give recommendations concerning the design of CSR initiatives in a way that benefits employees. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the Roman Kurkiewicz essays. He is a philosopher, but is also a wellknown newspaper, radio and television journalist. The publication Klapsy polskie contains selected essays printed in ‘Przekrój’. They are alphabetically arranged and concern many issues important for Poles at the time. Political, economic, sporting and cultural events are the starting point for general discussions on the human and the world. Kurkiewicz writes about difficult and controversial topics. The article describes selected examples of different kinds (...) of essay titles. The author refers to the literature, press and TV movies. Selected examples demonstrate the richness of the author’s ideas. (shrink)

The article reviews the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip G. Zimbardo.

The article reviews the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip G. Zimbardo.

The article reviews the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip G. Zimbardo.

In his work on internality, identification, and caring, Harry Frankfurt attempts to delineate the organization of agency peculiar to human beings, while avoiding the traditional overintellectualized emphasis on the human capacity to reason about action. The focal point of Frankfurt’s alternative picture is our capacity to make our own motivation the object of reflection. Building upon the observation that marginal agents (such as young children and Alzheimer’s patients) are capable of caring, I show that neither caring nor internality need to (...) depend on the phenomena of reflectiveness. I develop alternative interlocking accounts of caring and internality that are independent of both reflectiveness and evaluation, but that can still do justice to the central role of carings in the organization of agency characteristic of human persons. (shrink)

A being has moral standing if it or its interests matter intrinsically, to at least some degree, in the moral assessment of actions and events. For instance, animals can be said to have moral standing if, other things being equal, it is morally bad to intentionally cause their suffering. This essay focuses on a special kind of moral standing, what I will call “full moral standing” (FMS), associated with persons. In contrast to the var- ious accounts of what ultimately grounds (...) FMS in use in the philosophical literature, I will propose that the emotional capacity to care is a sufficient condition of an individual’s FMS as a person. In developing this account, I will appeal to a set of intuitions not previously mined for this purpose: those generated by conflicts of interests between different life phases of a single individual. (shrink)

Why does a baby who is otherwise cognitively similar to an animal such as a dog nevertheless have a higher moral status? We explain the difference in moral status as follows: the baby can, while a dog cannot, participate as a rearee in what we call “person-rearing relationships,” which can transform metaphysically and evaluatively the baby’s activities. The capacity to engage in these transformed activities has the same type of value as the very capacities (i.e., intellectual or emotional sophistication) that (...) explain unimpaired adult humans’ high moral status. We attempt to extend this account to individuals with severe cognitive impairments. (shrink)

While issues of efficacy and specificity are crucial for the future of neurofeedback training, there may be alternative designs and control analyses to circumvent the methodological and ethical problems associated with double-blind placebo studies. Surprisingly, most NF studies do not report the most immediate result of their NF training, i.e. whether or not children with ADHD gain control over their brain activity during the training sessions. For the investigation of specificity, however, it seems essential to analyze the learning and adaptation (...) processes that take place in the course of the training and to relate improvements in self-regulated brain activity across training sessions to behavioral, neuropsychological and electrophysiological outcomes. To this aim, a review of studies on neurofeedback training with ADHD patients, which include the analysis of learning across training sessions or relate training performance to outcome, is presented. Methods on how to evaluate and quantify learning of EEG regulation over time are discussed. “Non-learning” has been reported in a small number of ADHD-studies, but has not been a focus of general methodological discussion so far. For this reason, selected results from the brain-computer interface (BCI) research on the so-called “brain-computer illiteracy”, the inability to gain control over one’s brain activity, are also included. It is concluded that in the discussion on specificity, more attention should be devoted to the analysis of EEG regulation performance in the course of the training and its impact on clinical outcome. It is necessary to improve the knowledge on characteristic cross-session and within-session learning trajectories in ADHD and to provide the best conditions for learning. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to revise the dominating narrative of communism as male generational history. With the aid of memoirs of communist women, many of whom started their political activity before WWII and belonged to the power-wielding elites of Stalinist Poland, the author shows that the former constituted an integral part of the generation which had planned a revolution and ultimately took over power. Their texts were imbued with a matrilineal perspective on the history of communism: the authors (...) emphasized that other women had strongly motivated them to become involved in politics. However, the memoirs revealed something more: as an attempt to establish new models of emancipation and to transmit them to younger generations of women, they were to rekindle the memory of women as the active agent of that part of Polish history which contemporary feminists refuse to remember. (shrink)

The introduction of Women and Gender Studies in Polish universities is intrinsically connected with the systemic transformation following 1989. This change was marked by the rejection of the communist past with its nominal sexual equality and acceptance of a conservative culture legally restricting women’s rights. Since the mid-nineties, Women and Gender Studies programs have been instituted in many state and private universities albeit on an auxiliary, extramural bases or as “specialization” within other degrees (e.g., sociology, or cultural studies). Since the (...) mid-2000s, gender studies in Poland include studies of masculinity, gender identity formation and queer theory in addition to the traditional women studies program. After Poland joined the EU, the introduction of European legal standards started to influence the progress in Poland’s gender politics towards greater recognition of minority rights. Gender Studies are in the foreground of these changes in teaching and training students and colleagues in gender issues seen as crucial for building a democratic inclusive society. (shrink)

The paper aims at indicating opportunities and threats faced by gender studies in Poland. The author presents institutional problems, which limit dynamic development of the discipline and its impact on the society. She also discusses tensions between an academic affiliation of gender studies and its political aspirations rooted in the tradition of feminist movement. Finally, the author describes recent methodological debates on gender discourse—its theoretical inspirations and practical use.

We discuss applications of our account of moral status grounded in person-rearing relationships: which individuals have higher moral status or not, and why? We cover three classes of cases: (1) cases involving incomplete realization of the capacity to care, including whether infants or fetuses have this incomplete capacity; (2) cases in which higher moral status rests in part on what is required for the being to flourish; (3) hypothetical cases in which cognitive enhancements could, e.g., help dogs achieve human-like cognitive (...) capacities. We thereby show that our account does not have the counterintuitive implications alleged by DeGrazia and other critics. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Richard Swinburne’s modal argument for the existence of souls. After a brief presentation of the argument, wedescribe the main known objection to it, which is called the substitution objection (SO for short), and explain Swinburne’s response to that objection. With this as background, we formalize Swinburne’s argument in a quantified propositional modal language, modifying it so that it is logically valid and contains no tacit assumptions, and we explain why we find Swinburne’s response to SO unsatisfactory. Next, (...) we indicate that, even though SO is quite compelling, a weakening of one of the premises yields a valid argument for the same conclusion which is immune to SO. This version of the argument, however, is epistemically circular. (shrink)

This study examined individual differences in sensitivity to human-like features of a robot’s behavior. The paradigm comprised a non-verbal Turing test with a humanoid robot. A “programmed” condition differed from a “human-controlled” condition by onset times of the robot’s eye movements, which were either fixed across trials or modeled after prerecorded human reaction times, respectively. Participants judged whether the robot behavior was programmed or human-controlled, with no information regarding the differences between respective conditions. Autistic traits were measured with the autism-spectrum (...) quotient questionnaire in healthy adults. We found that the fewer autistic traits participants had, the more sensitive they were to the difference between the conditions, without explicit awareness of the nature of the difference. We conclude that although sensitivity to fine behavioral characteristics of others varies with social aptitude, humans are in general capable of detecting human-like behavior based on very subtle cues. (shrink)

This distinctively interdisciplinary approach to the subject encompasses filmmaking, psychoanalysis, philosophy and popular culture and offers a unique insight into documentary film practice from a psychoanalytic perspective. At the heart of the enquiry is belief that ‘transference-love’ is present in the documentary encounter. With a focus on testimony-driven film and a foreword by Michael Renov, who calls this book 'a radical and compelling account', _Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film _covers a range of topics including: Four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (...) and documentary film A review of documentary film practice A personal account of the author’s relationship with a subject of her own work A thorough interrogation of the ethics of documentary Ideal for film studies scholars, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychotherapeutically engaged professionals, as well as filmmakers, culture studies students and anyone interested in the process of documentary-making and contemporary culture, this work offers a unique approach. (shrink)

The material subject of Catholic social science is man and his actions taken in the fields of politics, the economy and society. According to its rules each person should be engaged in building the world through the realization of his or her vocation. One kind of vocation might be leading people by acting in accordance with the Gospel and teachings of the Church. The most important values for the leader in this case would be: respect for human dignity and human (...) rights, freedom, justice, the subsidiarity principle and cooperation due to creating the common good. The listed rules are realized by servant leadership, the idea functioning in the field of management that derives its origins from Christ’s speech: whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Mt 20:27). (shrink)

The philosophical activities during the Safavid era mark the peak of a renewed engagement with Greek sources unmediated by Ibn Sina's interest in them and their successive incorporation into his philosophy.1 Among the topics for which the Safavid thinkers consulted ancient Greek authors were cosmology, the role of the intellect and the ways of acquiring knowledge, the nature of the soul, and the process of emanation.2 This engagement, to be sure, did not mean an antiquarian, philological return to the original (...) texts in Greek. Rather, it was a re-reading of their Arabic translations from the ninth to tenth centuries to find ideas beyond those of which Ibn Sina made use, and to legitimize—through their... Read More. (shrink)

People should be at the centre of attention within knowledge-based economics. The leaders of each enterprise ought to focus on providing the best conditions for their employees’ professional and individual development and treat them with respect in terms of their dignity and needs. In contemporary literature two notions in perceiving people in organisations are noticeable. The first one treats employees as ‘resources’ which have to be properly used or as ‘capital’ that should bring a decent return on investment. The second (...) notion derives a lot from Christian philosophy and sees the human as a person who treats work as a way to realize his calling and thus is able to take responsibility for the decisions made and actions taken. Acting in a constantly changing environment, people have to be flexible and able to take advantage of emerging opportunities and avoid threats. Within this process it is not a matter of being a human ‘being’ but rather becoming, which means that they are incessantly developing their potential. Although it is hard to predict human behaviour, the main task for managers is to lead in a way that will help employees use their full potential for both their own and the company’s benefit. (shrink)