The network approach to psychopathology posits that mental disorders can be conceptualized and studied as causal systems of mutually reinforcing symptoms. This approach, first posited in 2008, has grown substantially over the past decade and is now a full-fledged area of psychiatric research. In this article, we provide an overview and critical analysis of 363 articles produced in the first decade of this research program, with a focus on key theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions. In addition, we turn our attention (...) to the next decade of the network approach and propose critical avenues for future research in each of these domains. We argue that this program of research will be best served by working toward two overarching aims: (a) the identification of robust empirical phenomena and (b) the development of formal theories that can explain those phenomena. We recommend specific steps forward within this broad framework and argue that these steps are necessary if the network approach is to develop into a progressive program of research capable of producing a cumulative body of knowledge about how specific mental disorders operate as causal systems. (shrink)

The generation of evidence is integral to the work of public health and health service providers. Traditionally, ethics has been addressed differently in research projects, compared with other forms of evidence generation, such as quality improvement, program evaluation, and surveillance, with review of non-research activities falling outside the purview of the research ethics board. However, the boundaries between research and these other evaluative activities are not distinct. Efforts to delineate a boundary – whether on grounds of primary purpose, temporality, underlying (...) legal authority, departure from usual practice, or direct benefits to participants – have been unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Modernism and the Architecture of Private Life offers a bold new assessment of the role of the domestic sphere in modernist literature, architecture, and design.

_Experience the world of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the tremendous challenges he faced and overcame with the help of Stoic philosophy_ This novel biography brings Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE) to life for a new generation of readers by exploring the emperor’s fascinating psychological journey. Donald J. Robertson examines Marcus’s relationships with key figures in his life, such as his mother, Domitia Lucilla, and the emperor Hadrian, as well as his Stoic tutors. He draws extensively on Marcus’s own _Meditations_ (...) and correspondence, and he examines the emperor’s actions as detailed in the _Augustan History_ and other ancient texts. Marcus Aurelius struggled to reconcile his philosophy and moral values with the political pressures he faced as emperor at the height of Roman power. Robertson examines Marcus’s attitude toward slavery and the moral dilemma posed by capturing enemies in warfare; his attitude toward women; the role of Stoicism in shaping his response to the threat of civil war; the treatment of Christians under his rule; and the naming of his notorious son Commodus as his successor. Throughout, the _Meditations _is used to shed light on the mind of the emperor—his character, values, and motives—as Robertson skillfully weaves together Marcus’s inner journey as a philosopher with the outer events of his life as a Roman emperor. (shrink)

Tocqueville's chapter on the American Constitution reflects on the attempt to superimpose a large-scale union upon what was originally a loose collection of self-governing local democracies. The latter are communities which draw easily from the natural basis for public-spiritedness, which is local patriotism. The constitutional system, on the other hand, must nurture loyalty to a union whose core is a set of legal formalities specifying the allocation of powers. Tocqueville shows that the federal union avoids the combination of republicanism with (...) extreme centralization that was sought by the revolutionaries in France. Nevertheless, the constitutional system harbours a tension between the original, more natural sources of civic loyalty and the abstract principles necessary for a national structure based upon complex theories of federation. The insight into this tension between constitutional idea and local democratic practice is at the heart of Tocqueville's reservations about the future of the union. (shrink)

About a decade ago I noticed that when referring to quality health care, or financial pyramid schemes like the one in the Madoff affair, or weakness in the mortgage market, many American intellectuals and politicians talked about the "moral imperatives" or the "ethical bailout" that would be needed to correct the resultant problems. But no one identified what the moral imperatives were. So I decided to investigate what such imperatives might consist of if Chinese and American thinkers tried to work (...) out an answer. This essay attempts to show what I found.What first attracted me to classical Chinese philosophy was that it seemed to anchor morality not in the words of an anthropomorphic God but in some natural... (shrink)

Thomistic political philosophers regularly attach a great deal of importance to ‘the problem of the origin of political authority’ and commonly cite one or the other of two traditional theories the translation theory or the designation theory as the answer to this problem. In this paper, we intend to take a fresh look at ‘the problem of the origin of political authority’ and at the translation and the designation theories. Specifically, we have five aims. These are: to demonstrate that ‘the (...) problem of the origin of political authority’ is not merely one problem but rather comprises a number of problems; to state these different problems; to suggest answers for them; to determine to what extent the translation theory and the designation theory provide answers for these problems, and, finally to explain in precisely what sense God is the origin of political authority. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Euripides: HecubaDonald J. MastronardeJustina Gregory, ed. Euripides: Hecuba. With intro., text, and comm. American Philological Association Textbook Series 14. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999. xxxviii + 218 pp. Cloth, $29.95; paper, $15.95. (Now distributed by Oxford University Press, New York.)In the past decade Hecuba has received ample attention in the literary scholarship on Euripides (Burnett, Mossman, Segal, Thalmann, and Zeitlin are among the major contributors, as well as Justina (...) Gregory herself, and the textual basis of the play is now secure with the excellent critical edition of James Diggle (Oxford Classical Texts, vol. 1, 1984), while the new Loeb edition of Kovacs presents both some original textual proposals and a clear and reliable English translation (vol. 2, 1995). Gregory has now provided teachers and students with a fine textbook for study of the play in undergraduate and graduate Greek courses or for self-study in the case of a student who needs guidance on syntax, style, and other matters. Scholars of tragedy will also find it a welcome resource. Although the scale of both the introduction and the commentary is limited, the commentary still totals some 160 pages. The generous font size and the moderate length of the individual notes will make the commentary relatively unintimidating for inexperienced students.After five pages on the original context (dating, elements of production) and six on "literary antecedents and Euripidean innovation," Gregory spends the largest part of the introduction (fourteen pages) on problems of interpretation. In opposition to interpretations that detect in the play a large-scale loss of moral bearings and in particular describe Hecuba as degraded by her experiences, rhetoric, and actions, Gregory argues that the Greek audience would have been able to "differentiate among the three acts of violence" (xxiv) and would not have felt the degree of alienation from and moral disapproval of Hecuba found in many modern critics. Among the problems treated in some detail are these: (1) the discrepant reports of what the ghost of Achilles demanded (Gregory sees the choice of Polyxena as victim as the product of human, political decision making); (2) the role of the winds (adverse winds arise only after the sacrifice of Polyxena and are not a precondition of it, and favorable winds follow the punishment of Polymestor, so that "the gods who disapproved of the Greeks' sacrificial offering seem to take a positive view of the Trojan queen's revenge" [xxxi]); and (3) Hecuba's metamorphosis into a dog and memorialization in a seafarer's landmark [End Page 129] (Gregory sees the dog as primarily an emblem of Hecuba's maternal impulse, and the mention of Cynossema as a link to contemporary realities, warning the Athenians that "the abuse of power is not without consequences" [xxxvi]). There is good justification for many of the points Gregory makes against readings overly influenced by modern concerns and values, but overall her reading strikes me as flattening somewhat the moral complexity of the drama. Much more characteristic of Euripides, in my view, is the shifting of sympathies and confusing of moral certainties. Compare, for instance, the case of Medea, where it is even clearer that in some sense the gods are on Medea's side, cooperating in her revenge, yet plainly by the end of the play even the sympathetic chorus has suffered a reversal of its identification with her, and a serious question arises as to what remains of Medea's humanity after her triumph.The text is close to that of Diggle, with some debt to Kovacs. Gregory is in general a more conservative textual critic than either (not necessarily a bad thing in such an edition), and she returns to the reading of the manuscripts in passages like 224, 414-21 (order of lines), 805, 824, 885, 1162. But Gregory does accept a number of conjectures, and in several passages that Diggle enclosed in obeli she accepts an emendation in order to offer a readable text (again, a suitable decision for a textbook). She marks fewer lines as interpolations, although she also accepts a deletion (827) not even reported in the apparatus by Diggle or Kovacs. The commentary gives a great deal of syntactic help, with... (shrink)

In this study of Martin Buber's life and work, Donald Moore focuses in on Buber's central message about what it means to be a human being and a person of faith.

BackgroundStigma refers to a distinguishing personal trait that is perceived as or actually is physically, socially, or psychologically disadvantageous. Little is known about the opinion of those who have more or less stigmatizing health conditions regarding the need for consent for use of their personal information for health research.MethodsWe surveyed the opinions of people 18 years and older with seven health conditions. Participants were drawn from: physicians' offices and clinics in southern Ontario; and from a cross-Canada marketing panel of individuals (...) with the target health conditions. For each of five research scenarios presented, respondents chose one of five consent choices: (1) no need for me to know; (2) notice with opt-out; (3) broad opt-in; (4) project-specific permission; and (5) this information should not be used. Consent choices were regressed onto: demographics; health condition; and attitude measures of privacy, disclosure concern, and the benefits of health research. We conducted focus groups to discuss possible reasons for observed consent choices.ResultsWe observed substantial variation in the control that people wish to have over use of their personal information for research. However, consent choice profiles were similar across health conditions, possibly due to sampling bias. Research involving profit or requiring linkage of health information with income, education, or occupation were associated with more restrictive consent choices. People were more willing to link their health information with biological samples than with information about their income, occupation, or education.ConclusionsThe heterogeneity in consent choices suggests individuals should be offered some choice in use of their information for different types of health research, even if limited to selectively opting-out. Some of the implementation challenges could be designed into the interoperable electronic health record. However, many questions remain, including how best to capture the opinions of those who are more privacy sensitive. (shrink)