In the present paper, we first argue that it is critical for humans to forget; that is, to have some means of preventing out-of-date information from interfering with the recall of current information. We then argue that the primary means of accomplishing such adaptive updating of human memory is retrieval inhibition: Information that is rendered out of date by new learning becomes less retrievable, but remains at essentially full strength in memory as indexed by other measures, such as recognition and (...) word-fragment completion. We conclude with a speculation that certain unconscious influences of prior events may, in fact, be stronger if those events were to be forgotten rather than to be remembered. (shrink)

Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, Robert A. Bjork. where people studied information in a drug state and then were tested in the same state 4 hr later—people recalled the material better than those who also had learned while under the drug but were ...

This article explicates the meaning of the paradox from the perspective of sexual difference, as articulated by Simone de Beauvoir. I claim that the self, the other, and their becoming are sexed in Beauvoir’s early literary writing before the question of sexual difference is posed in The Second Sex (1949). In particular, Beauvoir’s description of Françoise’s subjective becoming in the novel She Came to Stay (1943) anticipates her later systematic description of ‘the woman in love’. In addition, I argue that (...) the different existential types appearing at the end of The Second Sex (the narcissist, the woman in love, the mystic, and the independent woman) are variations of a specific feminine, historically changing paradox of subjectivity. According to this paradox, women, in a different mode than men, must become what they ontologically “are”: beings of change and self-transcendence that have to realise the human condition in their concrete, singular lives. My interpretation draws on Kierkegaardian philosophy of existence, phenomenology, and early psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Literature has a central place in Hannah Arendt’s writings. In particular, scholars continually discuss the implications of storytelling to her theory of action. This paper takes a different approach by drawing attention to an early literary essay, ”Rilke’s Duino Elegies”, which Arendt co-authored with Günther Stern in 1930. The paper locates the essay in the early twentieth century intellectual response to the ”break in tradition”, arguing that the construction of a poetics dramatized in the Duino Elegies is crucial for judging (...) the originality of Arendt’s philosophical methodology, and the ontological significance of her poetic conception of praise. In this conception, meaning is to be found in things as they appear to human beings capable of using the language designating them poetically. I present my interpretation of the Arendt-Stern essay by contrasting it with Heidegger’s comment on the eighth Elegy from 1942-43 and Blanchot’s reading of Rilke from 1955. (shrink)

"A compelling, insightful, and intimate portrait of William James as artist, philosopher, and psychologist, The Compromised Scientist explains James's emergence as a founding father of American experimental psychology. Unlike most books about James, this one emphasizes the fact that he had found a career as a painter and was not really a "buried" philosopher or psychologist. He was, in fact, an artist who was forced to compromise his urge to paint by developing a unique psychological language--the language of the "stream (...) of consciousness." Daniel W. Bjork offers an entirely new perspective on James by analyzing his famous diary as a record of his brilliant flight from art to psychology. In addition, Bjork explores the ways in which James's artistic orientation inevitably brought him into conflict with such other major psychological pioneers as Hugo Münsterberg, Edward Bradford Titchener, and James McKeen Cattell, all of whom dissented from James's psychological and professional outlook and, in particular, his enthusiastic crusade for the unconscious and psychic research. For them too, James was a "compromised scientist"--A man who had abandoned scientific standards. This indispensable study, complete with ample diary notations and illustrations, brings into new perspective the leading figure in American experimental psychology."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

To investigate whether Swedish physicians, contrary to Swedish health care policy, employ considerations of patient responsibility for illness when rationing expensive treatments.

Elias’s view of democracy and German Sonderweg is discussed by looking at his analysis of intellectuals. How should the figuration of culture and politics be conceived at a time when the civilizing process could trigger both democracy and autarchy? It is argued that Elias’s answer was that democracy is always accompanied by discontinuity in existence, and that the Weimar Republic therefore needed intellectual spokespersons promoting tolerance of political uncertainty. Such democratic culture demanded a fair balance between involvement and detachment. Elias (...) claimed that intellectuals ought to act as defenders of chance and a fragmented society, and moreover as critics of political romanticism and utopian myths. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism, a theory of distributive justice, holds that inequalities which arise due to individuals’ imprudent choices must not, as a matter of justice, be neutralized. This article deals with the possible application of luck egalitarianism to the area of health care. It seeks to investigate whether the ethos of luck egalitarianism can be operationalized to the point of informing health care policy without straying from its own ideals. In the transition from theory to practise, luck egalitarianism encounters several difficulties. (...) We argue that the charge of moral arbitrariness can, at least in part, be countered by our provided definition of “imprudent actions” in the health area. We discuss the choice for luck egalitarianism in health care between ex ante and ex post policy approaches, and show how both approaches are flawed by luck egalitarianism’s own standards. We also examine the problem of threshold setting when luck egalitarianism is set to practise in health care. We argue that wherever policy thresholds are set, luck egalitarianism in health care risks pampering the imprudent, abandoning the prudent or, at worst, both. Furthermore, we claim that moves to mitigate these risks in turn diminish the normative importance of the ethos of luck egalitarianism to policy. All in all, our conclusion is that luck egalitarianism cannot be consistently applied as a convincing and relevant normative principle in health care policy. (shrink)

Background The aim of this study was to investigate whether physicians who felt strongly for or against a treatment, in this case a moderately life prolonging non-curative cancer treatment, differed in their estimation of medical indication for this treatment as compared to physicians who had no such sentiment. A further aim was to investigate how the notion of medical indication was conceptualised. Methods A random sample of GPs, oncologists and pulmonologists comprised the study group. Respondents were randomised to receive either (...) version of a case presentation; in one version, the patient had smoked and in the other version she had never smoked. The physicians were labelled value-neutral and value-influenced on the basis of their attitude towards the treatment. Results In the ‘value-influenced’ group, there was a significant difference in the estimation of medical indication for treatment depending upon whether the patient had smoked or never smoked ). There was no such difference in the ‘value-neutral’ group. Conclusion This study shows that compared to value-neutral physicians, value-influenced physicians are more likely to base decisions of medical indication on medically irrelevant factors. Moreover, medical indication is used in an ambiguous manner. Hence, we recommend that the usage of ‘medical indication’ be disciplined. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's distinction between encoding processes and metamnemonic decision processes is theoretically and practically important, as is their methodology for separating the two. However, their accuracy measure is a conditional statistic, subject to the unfathomable selection effects that have hindered analogous measures in the past. We also find their arguments concerning basic and applied research mostly beside the point.

BackgroundOrganizations worldwide increasingly adopt inclusive talent management, and this approach appears to rhyme particularly well with the Nordic welfare model. Questions about its value remain understudied, however. The inclusive approach is rooted in positive psychology and focuses on recognizing each employee's individual talents and assessing whether they fit the long-term needs of the organization, since a fit is assumed to be associated with employees' wellbeing. In the present study, we test this assumption focusing specifically on a key talent management practice, (...) talent identification, and the social dimension of employee wellbeing.MethodData were collected through an employee survey conducted within the Finnish units of four international manufacturing organizations and analyzed using logistic regression.ResultsWe found that the recognition of individual talents for long-term deployment by the organization is positively associated with social wellbeing in terms of supervisor support and social climate in the work unit, as perceived by the employees.ConclusionOur results tentatively suggest that inclusive talent management creates value through the identification of employees' individual talents as this practice can be associated with their enhanced wellbeing. (shrink)

In many countries, there are health care initiatives to make smokers give up smoking in the peri-operative setting. There is empirical evidence that this may improve some, but not all, operative outcomes. However, it may be feared that some support for such policies stems from ethically questionable opinions, such as paternalism or anti-smoker sentiments. This study aimed at investigating the support for a policy of smoking cessation prior to surgery among Swedish physicians and members of the general public, as well (...) as the reasons provided for this. A random sample of general practitioners and orthopaedic surgeons as well as members of the general public received a mail questionnaire. It contained a vignette case with a smoking 57-year old male farmer with hip osteoarthritis. The patient had been recommended hip replacement therapy, but told that in order to qualify for surgery he needed to give up smoking four weeks prior to and after surgery. The respondents were asked whether making such qualifying demands is acceptable, and asked to rate their agreement with pre-set arguments for and against this policy. Response rates were 58.2% among physicians and 53.8% among the general public. Of these, 83.9% and 86.6%, respectively, agreed that surgery should be made conditional upon smoking cessation. Reference to the peri-operative risks associated with smoking was the most common argument given. However, there was also strong support for the argument that such a policy is mandated in order to achieve long term health gains. There is strong support for a policy of smoking cessation prior to surgery in Sweden. This support is based on considerations of peri-operative risks as well as the general long term risks of smoking. This study indicates that paternalistic attitudes may inform some of the support for peri-operative smoking cessation policies and that at least some respondents seem to favour a “recommendation strategy” vis-à-vis smoking cessation prior to surgery rather than a “requirement strategy”. The normative reasons speak in favour of the “recommendation strategy”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many rhetorical theories of ethos mark their relationship with time by focusing on two temporal poles: the timely ethos and the timeless ethos. But between these two temporal poles, ethos is also durative; it lingers, shifts, accumulates, and dissipates over time. Although scholarship often foregrounds the kairotic and static senses of ethos popularized in Aristotle's Rhetoric, this article highlights how the chronic elements of ethos are no less important to rhetoric. By examining Xenophon's and Plato's representations of the trial (...) of Socrates, this article contends that these competing views about the temporalities of ethos have a storied history that predates Aristotle's writings. This analysis also expands received understandings of Plato's contributions to rhetoric by illuminating how his view of ethos is deeply intertwined with ongoing philosophical practice. The article concludes by arguing that rhetorical studies has much to gain by more closely attending to the cumulative aspects of ethos. (shrink)

The shape and function of ethical imperatives may vary if the context is an interaction between strangers, or those who are well acquainted. This idea, taken up from Stephen Toulmin’s distinction between an “ethics of strangers” and an “ethics of intimacy”, can be applied to encounters in healthcare. There are situations where healthcare personnel (HCP) know their patients (corresponding to an “ethics of intimacy”) and situations where HCP do not know their patients (corresponding to “an ethics of strangers”). Does it (...) make a difference for normative imperatives that follow from central concepts and principles in medical ethics whether HCP know their patients or not? In our view, this question has not yet been answered satisfactorily. Once we have clarified what is meant by “knowing the patient”, we will show that the distinction is particularly relevant with regard to some thorny questions of autonomy in healthcare (e.g., regarding advance directives or paternalism in the name of autonomy), whereas the differences with regard to imperatives following from the principles of justice and beneficence seem to be smaller. We provide a detailed argument for why knowing the patient is ethically valuable in encounters in healthcare. Consequently, healthcare systems should provide fertile ground for HCP to get to know their patients, and structures that foster therapeutic continuity. For this to succeed, a number of questions still need to be clarified, which is an important task for medical ethics. (shrink)

This article deals explicitly with the dimension of access in the concept of citizenship and is discussed from the point of view of migration. Access is analyzed in the context of the reform of German citizenship laws in 1999. The state of Hesse is singled out to be used as an example of parliamentary debate on the concepts of citizenship and integration. The point is to explicate the interrelations of the federal legislative reform and the conceptual implications thereof, using Hesse (...) as a state-level example. (shrink)