Psychosocial coping resources and health among Germans and Poles Culture has a substantial impact on mechanism of coping with stress and related health outcomes. We proposed a model emphasizing the mediating role of coping resources and competences in the relationship between controllability of demands in professional/educational life and health in the cross-cultural context. The model is based on the transactional model of stress. 595 participants from East Germany, West Germany and Poland completed: Sense of Coherence Scale SOC-9, Self-Esteem Scale, Social (...) Support Scale, Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, Proactive Coping Inventory, Scale of Demands in Professional Life, Brief Stress Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Mental Health Questionnaire. The results have shown the general cross-cultural validity of the proposed mediational model but also indicated some cultural differences in the determinants of health. Germans had higher self-esteem and social support. Poles had higher self-efficacy and used proactive coping strategies more often. Self-esteem was the strongest predictor of mental health in both nations. We discussed the results within a broad interpretive framework of social transitions. (shrink)

This paper argues that institutions are higher-level autonomous systems enacted by patterns of participatory sense-making. Therefore, unlike in the standard equilibrium theory, institutions are not themselves thought of as behavioural patterns. Instead, they are problem domains that these patterns have brought forth. Moreover, these are not merely any patterns, but only those devoted to maintaining a specific strategy of problem solving, called the strategy of ‘letting be’. The latter refers to, following Hanne de Jaegher, a balance between underdetermination and overdetermination (...) of individual behaviour by a collective. Such an understanding of institutions becomes an option once a hybrid ‘equilibrium + rules’ theory of institutions, such as the one proposed by Frank Hindriks, is supplemented with insights from enactivism. In this light, drawing a connection between these two areas is the additional, meta-theoretical goal of this paper. This connection is beneficial, I argue, in particular since it allows for a satisfactory, in-depth account of the normative character of institutions as well as their local character. (shrink)

Social referencing informs and regulates one’s relation with the environment as a function of the perceived appraisals of social partners. Increased emphasis on relational and social contexts in the study of emotion makes this interpersonal process particularly relevant to the field. However, theoretical conceptualizations and empirical operationalizations of social referencing are disjointed across domains and populations of study. This article seeks to unite and refine the study of this construct by providing a clear and comprehensive definition of social referencing. Our (...) perspective presents social referencing and social appraisal as coterminous processes and emphasizes the importance of a relational and interpersonal approach to the study of emotion. We conclude by outlining possible lines of research on this construct. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

On the broken myth in the philosophy of religion and theology Abstract. The article deals with the concept of broken myth, thus named by the German theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich (1886 - 1965). The thesis related to this concept is that all religions, including Christianity, use a mythical language. This language is expressing moral truths and metaphysical intuitions, but not the objective facts and states of affairs that may provide knowledge. The broken myth does not imply the rejection of (...) myth as a mere untruth, but rather its split into untruth, which is the garment of the story understood literally, and truth, which is (although not always and to varying degrees) a moral and spiritual inspiration. The broken myth is self-aware, but not discredited. The author formulates six reasons that can speak in favor of such view. He believes that its acceptance by the community of believers can be very difficult, so the traditional discourse of faith, in which one understands literally credo articles (including the notions of mystery and analogy), must be considered not as an anachronism, but as an autonomous partner of dialogue. -/- . (shrink)

My contention is to adumbrate three general premises leading to religious tolerance. The first is that emphasis should be laid much more on ethics than on metaphysics. Religions greatly differ in supernatural beliefs but all advocate justice, love, truthfulness, self-control and other virtues. Second, the beliefs about God are not true in their exact meaning, but rather as remote analogies to scientific truth. Religion is more resemblant of poetry than science. Third, real tolerance consists in the readiness to assimilate some (...) of the values of other religions, since no one has expressed the transcendent in an exhausting and perfect way. Key Words: tolerance, ethics, objective knowledge, world religions, openness for the Other. (shrink)

We examine second order intuitionistic propositional logic, IPC². Let $F_\exists $ be the set of formulas with no universal quantification. We prove Glivenko's theorem for formulas in $F_\exists $ that is, for φ € $F_\exists $ φ is a classical tautology if and only if ¬¬φ is a tautology of IPC². We show that for each sentence φ € $F_\exists $ (without free variables), φ is a classical tautology if and only if φ is an intuitionistic tautology. As a corollary (...) we obtain a semantic argument that the quantifier V is not definable in IPC² from ⊥, V, ^, →. (shrink)

The author presents a schematic outline of two approaches in contemporary philosophy of technology, the first of which is rather pessimistic, with technological progress seen as a rising force which subjugates humans and, to use Martin Heidegger’s words, “hampers, oppresses and drags them along in its tracks.” Also underscored is the failing relation between scientific and technological progress and moral development. The second approach, presented in reference to the thoughts of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, interprets scientific and technological progress as (...) the creation of tools enabling the unity of mankind and further evolution. The author supports Teilhard’s view, which he sees as a better motivation to build a better world. (shrink)

Author: Waloszczyk Konrad Title: THE RELIGION AS THE POETRY. ABOUT PHILOSOPHY OF THE RELIGION OF GEORGE SANTAYANA (Religia jako poezja? O filozofi i religii George’a Santayany) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2010, vol:.11, number: 2010/2, pages: 93-106 Keywords: RELIGIOUS DOGMA, METAPHOR, “COPERNICAN REVOLUTION” IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND THEOLOGY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:George Santayana (1863–1952) has contended that religion should be seen as a kind of poetry and not (...) as a literal truth. To him “religion, when seen to be poetry, ceases to be deceptive and therefore odious, and becomes humanly more significant than it seemed before”. I shall (1) expose reasons which have him conduced to this view, (2) compare it with the opposite doctrine of the Catholic Church and (3) conclude, that Santayana’s philosophy of religion seems to be in the age of globalization and religious pluralism of particular relevance. (shrink)

Der Streit um das, was Ästhetik ist und sein kann, konzentriert sich auf Fragen nach der Diskurs-, Analyse- und Problematisierungsfähigkeit ihres historischen und epistemologischen Instrumentariums, d.h. ihrer tradierten Begriffe ebenso wie nach der Konturierung ihrer Grundthemen und Gegenstandsfelder. Im vorliegenden Band wird die Zukunft ästhetischer Forschung, ihrer Methoden und Inhalte nicht allein aus philosophischer, sondern auch aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive thematisiert. Kulturwissenschaftler, Medientheoretiker, Soziologen, Literatur- und Kunstwissenschaftler beantworten auf unterschiedliche Weise die Frage nach dem Wozu der Ästhetik und bezeichnen die Schnittmengen, (...) die der Ästhetik zuarbeiten und sie herausfordern, sich zu profilieren. Dadurch daß die analytische und diagnostische Kraft einer sich traditionell philosophisch verstehenden Ästhetik aufgebraucht scheint und sich Ästhetik als Wissenschaftsdisziplin möglicherweise in der Diffusion ihrer Begriffe aufzugeben droht, scheint ein neues Ästhetik-Verständnis besonders wichtig. (shrink)

The author presents a schematic outline of two approaches in contemporary philosophy of technology, the first of which is rather pessimistic, with technological progress seen as a rising force which subjugates humans and, to use Martin Heidegger’s words, “hampers, oppresses and drags them along in its tracks.” Also underscored is the failing relation between scientific and technological progress and moral development. The second approach, presented in reference to the thoughts of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, interprets scientific and technological progress as (...) the creation of tools enabling the unity of mankind and further evolution. The author supports Teilhard’s view, which he sees as a better motivation to build a better world. (shrink)

Key terms: cosmogenesis, evolution, consciousness, noosphere, religion, science, technology. The question whether religion and science can be reconciled is still under discussion today. Philosophical naturalism rejects such a possibility, at best treating these fields as a non overlapping magisteria (Stephen Jay Gould). However, the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) has created an original vision of an evolutionary universe in which science and religion present themselves as two meridians, which are autonomous but slowly converge to form a (...) complete union at the pole, that is, in the far future. What are the ontological foundations of this optimistic vision? Can the collective heritage of human thought be considered as a further stage of the universal evolution? Is the main task of religion to activate human energy? Is the concept of cosmic Christ compatible with Christian dogmas? Such and similar questions are the content of the article. My aim in this paper is not so much a detailed analysis of Teilhard’s thought as a review of some of his main theses, especially regarding science and religion. I also devote some space to a critique of these theses, and in the closing part I ask if they are in any way falsifiable. (shrink)

Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write beautifully. He did more than any other person to establish and popularize the study of how animals behave, receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. King Solomon's Ring , the book which brought him worldwide recognition, (...) is a delightful treasury of observations and insights into the lives of all sorts of creatures, from jackdaws and water-shrews to dogs, cats and even wolves. Charmingly illustrated by Lorenz himself, this book is a wonderfully written introduction to the world of our furred and feathered friends, a world which often provides an uncanny resemblance to our own. A must for any animal-lover! (shrink)

The Values in Action (VIA) classification of character strengths and virtues has been recently proposed by two leading positive psychologists, Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman as “the social science equivalent of virtue ethics.” The very possibility of developing this kind of an “equivalent,” however, is very doubtful in the light of the cogent criticism that has been leveled at modern moral theory by Alasdair MacIntyre as well as the well argued accusations that positive psychology, despite its official normative neutrality, is (...) pervaded by specifically Western individualism and instrumentalism. In order to evaluate whether the VIA project can be considered as substantially rooted in virtue ethical tradition, the classification was assessed against two fundamental features of the classical version of the latter: (1) the substantial interconnectedness of individual virtues, as expressed by the thesis of the unity of virtue, and (2) the constitutive character of the relationship between virtue and happiness. It turned out, in result, that the two above features are not only absent from but also contradicted by the VIA framework with the latter's: (1′) construal of individual virtues and character strengths as independent variables and (2′) official endorsement of the fact/value distinction. As soon as the arguments for the superiority of the classical virtue ethical perspective are provided, the potential responses available to the VIA's proponents are discussed. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

The idea of philosophy as a kind of therapy, though by no means standard, has been present in metaphilosophical reflection since antiquity. Diverse versions of it were also discussed and applied by more recent authors such as Wittgenstein, Hadot and Foucault. In order to develop an explicit, general and systematic model of therapeutic philosophy a relatively broad and well-structured account provided by Martha Nussbaum is subjected to analysis. The results obtained, subsequently, form a basis for a new model constructed around (...) the set of notions intrinsically connected with any, philosophical, psychological, or medical, form of therapy. The conceptual framework of: disease and its symptoms, the health ideal, the process of treatment with its techniques, therapeutic theory, physician, patient, and the physician-patient relationship is constructed and investigated in the context of its possible metaphilosophical use. An illustrative application of this scheme to philosophical therapy developed by Stoicism is, then, discussed. Finally, the issue of the therapeutic metaphilosophy's scope as well as the problem of therapeutic philosophy's specificity and integrity are briefly indicated. (shrink)

This article presents an empirical examination of the consequences of the virtual entailment principle proposed by Jean Buridan to resolve the Liar paradox. This principle states that every sentence in natural language implicitly asserts its own truth. Adopting this principle means that the Liar sentence is not paradoxical but false, because its content is contradictory to what is virtually implied. As a result, humans should perceive the Liar sentence the same way as any other false sentence. This solution to the (...) Liar paradox received criticism for making ad hoc claims about the natural language. However, thanks to modern advancements in psychophysiology, it became possible to empirically investigate if the human brain really perceives the Liar sentence like a false sentence. We designed and conducted an experiment to examine brain activity in response to true sentences, false sentences and self-referential sentences. Our results provide support for the Buridan’s hypothesis and show that the Liar sentence is processed by the human brain identically to false sentences, while the Truthteller sentence is perceived identically to true sentences. This agrees with predictions derived from the virtual entailment principle and supports the idea that humans think with the logic of truth—a logic for which the truth is a designated value of its adequate semantics. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

The practical aspect of ancient philosophy has been recently made a focus of renewed metaphilosophical investigation. After a brief presentation of three accounts of this kind developed by Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot, and Michel Foucault, the model of the therapeutic argument developed by Nussbaum is called into question from the perspectives offered by her French colleagues, who emphasize spiritual exercise (Hadot) or the care of the self (Foucault). The ways in which the account of Nussbaum can be defended are then (...) discussed, including both a ‘negative’ defense, i.e. the indication of the weaknesses of Hadot and Foucault’s proposals, and a ‘positive’ one focused on the points in which Nussbaum can convincingly address doubts about her metaphilosophical account. In response to these analyses, some further remarks made by Hadot and Foucault are discussed in order to demonstrate that their accounts are not as distant from Nussbaum after all. Finally, a recent metaphilosophical study by John Sellars together with a therapeutic (medical) model developed by the author of the present article are suggested as providing a framework for potential reconciliation between all three accounts discussed and a resource for further metaphilosophical studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Doctors Get It WrongKonrad BlairThe BeginningIt was a gloomy winter day as I sat in the back of the car while my father and mother drove me to another appointment in Pittsburgh. It was and wasn’t like so many car trips of my childhood for so many doctors’ appointments. The same deadening silence filled [End Page 89] the car as we drew closer to our destination. My parents (...) never discussed the appointments with me and I just learned to never ask. This appointment was different though; it came about as a result of request by a psychology professor who was conducting a follow–up study on individuals treated by the team of endocrinologists I saw as a child.The professor had reached out to me through my parents, since that was the only contact information available. It had been more than ten years since I had seen any of the doctors who treated me as a child. I was living in another state when I received the call from my mother informing me of the request for my participation in the study. I was really quite shocked; in all the years I was treated in early childhood and adolescence, no one had ever asked me how I felt about the treatment I received. I knew I had a medical condition, but no one ever explained to me why I needed so many appointments, and why I had to take medicine three times a day. No one told me why, when I was two or three years old, I had surgery that left me with memories of gauze and a catheter between my legs, or why medical residents still wanted to examine me, or why I had to be humiliated and ashamed, again and again. I was in my early 30’s by this time. Surely if my condition was so important that someone wanted to talk to me now, so many years later, the conversation would have already happened?!My parents dropped me off at the scheduled location for the interview. The professor introduced himself and his colleague. I didn’t recognize them, which meant they weren’t the doctors who had treated me. I remember feeling somewhat relieved, as I never liked the doctors who treated me as a child. I remembered my last appointment there, and feeling that I was escaping from captivity, that I was free to go on with my life.I wasn’t sure what to expect from this meeting. The professor told me that to date no one had completed any follow–up on the pediatric patients treated by the hospital’s endocrinology team to see how they were faring in life. He said he thought that was quite odd, so had decided to take on the project himself. He began by asking, “so, D_____, [I went by another name then] how are you doing at this point in your life?”I felt a sudden surge of rage, and, to my own surprise, I found myself responding angrily, “Why the hell do you care? It’s been over ten years and nobody, I mean nobody gives a rat’s ass as to how I’m doing and coping with the ramifications of the treatment I received from Dr. X.” Looking back, more than ten years after this meeting, I can see that I had been angry for a long time. I had been compliant and knew to play my role as a good girl. I had a good job, and I was married, but I knew I was far from happy.And so with that first question began what would be the long painful journey to discovering what had been hidden from me for over half my life, the source of my confusion and unparalleled frustration. What I had experienced throughout my childhood would permeate every aspect of my being and perception of myself for years to come. Every day I had to confront the effects of that experience just to live another day.The MiddleI was in shock and disbelief as I read and reread the letter my attorney presented to me from the very group of... (shrink)

Action-based legal theory is a discrete branch of praxeology and the basis of an emerging school of jurisprudence related to, but distinct from, natural law. Legal theory and economic theory share content that is part of praxeology itself: the action axiom, the a priori of argumentation, universalizable property theory, and counterfactual-deductive methodology. Praxeological property-norm justification is separate from the strictly ethical “ought” question of selecting ends in an action context. Examples of action-based jurisprudence are found in existing “Austro-libertarian” literature. Legal (...) theory and legal practice must remain distinct and work closely together if justice is to be found in real cases. Legal theorizing was shaped in religious ethical contexts, which contributed to confused field boundaries between law and ethics. The carrot and stick influence of rulers on theorists has distorted conventional economics and jurisprudence in particular directions over the course of centuries. An action-based approach is relatively immune to such sources of distortion in its methods and conclusions, but has tended historically to be marginalized from conventional institutions for this same reason. (shrink)

This essay articulates one way to conduct a cultural intervention from the Asia/Pacific region that recognizes the cultural governance of “Other” traffics. I investigate the discursive framework of Charlie Chan and Hawai'i detective fiction to inform the ways in which nation-states police cultural difference and enact geo-cultural homogeneity. I contend that Charlie Chan acts as a narrative of containment by inscribing and transcribing those spaces, times and bodies that would otherwise disrupt the national field of America. In particular, the imaginative (...) geography of Charlie Chan not only affirms the tropical paradise coding of Hawai'i, it attempts to provide disciplinary insights from the perspective of a “native informant”; the figure of Charlie Chan translates and forecloses the discordant rhythms of minority and “native” communities in ways that enable the production of popular television shows such as Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I. and Baywatch Hawaii. However,despite this national deployment of Charlie Chan, I want to suggest that Charlie Chan can also be read as a tactic of geopolitical resistance. His figure can assume a parodic and critical stance in the form of a native mis-informant, and by so doing, his character insecures dark bodies, times, spaces of the Orient and the Oceanic. (shrink)

Contemporary logicians have expanded upon the old notions of psychologism in logic and proposed new, weakened versions of it. Those weakened versions postulate that psychologistic logic does not have to inform about the ontology or metaphysics of reasoning. Instead, logic applied in cognitive science could serve as one of many paradigms for making empirical predictions about the observable process of human reasoning. The purpose of this article is to entertain this notion and answer the question: what properties should a logical (...) system formally representing actual human reasoning have? Based on the existing evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience we identified three potential candidates: context-sensitivity (satisfied for example by adaptive logics), content-sensitivity (satisfied by non-Fregean logics) and probabilism (satisfied for example by fuzzy logics). (shrink)

We are encouraged by the attention paid to fundamental aspects relating to the interpersonal functions of emotion. In continuing this discussion, we consider two arguments used to distinguish social referencing and social appraisal, namely the role of ostension and the absence of prior appraisals of the individual. We contend that neither element is essential to social referencing.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 2 Seiten: 919-942.

The main purpose of this article is to undertake a conceptual investigation of the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm: a psychological project initiated by Paul Baltes and intended to study the complex phenomenon of wisdom. Firstly, in order to provide a wider perspective for the subsequent analyses, a short historical sketch is given. Secondly, a meta-theoretical issue of the degree to which the subject matter of the Baltesian study can be identified with the traditional philosophical wisdom is addressed. The main result yielded (...) by a careful conceptual analysis is that the philosophical and psychological concepts of wisdom, though not entirely the same, are at least parallel. Finally, one of the revealed aspects of the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, i.e. its relative neglect of the non-cognitive and personal aspects of wisdom is brought to the fore. This deficiency, it is suggested, can be remedied by the application of the virtue ethics' conceptual framework. (shrink)

The book is the first formulation of a meta-philosophical scheme rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm. The latter views subjects capable of cognition and experience as living, embodied creatures coupled with their environments. On the other hand, the emergence of experimental philosophy has given rise to a new context in which philosophers have begun to search for a more thorough definition of philosophical competence. The time is ripe for these two trends to join their efforts. Therefore, the book discusses what (...) it means for a human being thought of as a living subject to pursue philosophy. In this context, in contrast to the existing literature, philosophical competence must not be conflated with competence in philosophy. The former is a skill or attitude. The book refers to this peculiar attitude as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. (shrink)

Two major philosophical movements have sought to fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans and their environment(s): environmental ethics and enactivism. Surprisingly, they virtually never refer to or seek inspiration from each other. The goal of this analysis is to bridge the gap. Our main purpose, then, is to address, from the enactivist angle, the conceptual backbone of environmental ethics, namely the concept of intrinsic value. We argue that intrinsic value does indeed exist, yet its "intrinsicality" does not boil down to (...) being independent of the interests and needs of humans. Rather, it is brought forth by what we callshared enactionof an axiological domain. The latter is built upon such core posits of enactivism as autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making as well as the most recent concept of loving as knowing proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)