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)

BackgroundThe role of consent for research use of health information is contentious. Most discussion has focused on when project-specific consent may be waived but, recently, a broader range of consent options has been entertained, including broad opt-in for multiple studies with restrictions and notification with opt-out. We sought to elicit public values in this matter and to work toward an agreement about a common approach to consent for use of personal information for health research through deliberative public dialogues.MethodsWe conducted seven (...) day-long public dialogues, involving 98 participants across Canada. Immediately before and after each dialogue, participants completed a fixed-response questionnaire rating individuals' support for 3 approaches to consent in the abstract and their consent choices for 5 health research scenarios using personal information. They also rated how confident different safeguards made them feel that their information was being used responsibly.ResultsBroad opt-in consent for use of personal information garnered the greatest support in the abstract. When presented with specific research scenarios, no one approach to consent predominated. When profit was introduced into the scenarios, consent choices shifted toward greater control over use. Despite lively and constructive dialogues, and considerable shifting in opinion at the individual level, at the end of the day, there was no substantive aggregate movement in opinion. Personal controls were among the most commonly cited approaches to improving people's confidence in the responsible use of their information for research.ConclusionBecause no one approach to consent satisfied even a simple majority of dialogue participants and the importance placed on personal controls, a mechanism should be developed for documenting consent choice for different types of research, including ways for individuals to check who has accessed their medical record for purposes other than clinical care. This could be done, for example, through a web-based patient portal to their electronic health record. Researchers and policy makers should continue to engage the public to promote greater public understanding of the research process and to look for feasible alternatives to existing approaches to project-specific consent for observational research. (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.

Citing Kenneth Thompson, Puchala warns that American international relations students have mistakenly emphasized the study of interstate relations at the expense of studying intercultural relations.

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Vol. VI: Theology: The Old Covenant. By HANS Uns VoN BALTHASAR. Trans. Brian McNeil, C.R.V. and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis. Ed. John Riches. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991. Pp. 443. In this penultimate-volume of The Glory of the Lord, von Balthasar sets forth a " biblical aesthetics " in which the manner of the emergence of the Glory of God in (...) the world of man is spelled out. He proceeds by examining the bewildering variety of the manifestations of God's Glory in the Old Testament, but always as unified in their historical convergence upon Jesus, the Christ, the final and definitive presence in history of the divine Glory in whom Word and Image, Messiah and Servant, Son of Man and Son of God, are at one. This manner of proceeding is little consonant with contemporary Catholic exegesis, which prefers to regard the Old Testament as a free-standing hook, and is rather fastidious about reading it as " literally " the prologue and the Sitz im Leben of the New. For such exegetes, the literal and the historical senses are entirely distinct, because of their methodological enlistment in the historical pessimism of the Enlightenment. Balthasar, of course, is not of their camp. Balthasar's mastery of Old Testament exegesis is on a par with the effortless command of the Western philosophical, theological, and literary tradition which he has displayed in the earlier volumes of this work. While he relies heavily upon von Rad, a glance at the index shows that his knowledge of Old Testament scholarship is based upon a wide reading, upon which he levies throughout the book with practiced ease. The exegetical method implicit in his analysis is the one employed by scholars such as de Lubac, Guillet, and Ligier; its classic Augustinian understanding of the free unity of history, and of the consequently free meaning of Old Testament and the New as fulfilled in the Kingdom of God, needs no apology. The currently common supposition that the " literal " sense of Scripture is that which an Enlightened positivism will permit needs only to be recognized to be rejected. In the opening pages of the Introduction Balthasar sets the theme which will dominate the book: the rationally irresolvable dialectical 139 140 BOOK REVIEWS tension between God and all that is not God, a tension inherent in the revelation of the Glory of God. In keeping with the emphasis of his earlier volumes, Balthasar is insistent upon the radical gratuity of the revelation of the Glory of God. The revelatory manifestation of God as God, who is beyond all perception, all knowing, all communication, and yet is communicated, perceived the more surely where the more veiled, and definitively revealed on the Cross. The revelation of God's Glory is of God as the Absolutely Other, as formless, and so as in tension with all form which would mediate the revelation. This communication, this mediation, is utterly ex nihilo; it relies upon no capacity in man, upon no natural process of spiritual development, and is unrelated to, because absolutely transcendent to, all human projects. Impossible to prepare for, the manifestation is constantly new, arising out of no prior possibility in man or his world, and responding to nothing in him which might make the revelation capable of anticipation. The paradox of God's self communication of his formless Glory is then beyond all utterance, and yet is uttered, given form: the final Form is, of course, the Christ. This is the basic datum, the ground upon which all theology rests, and is pure grace, a gift beyond all expectation, incapable of being imagined. All the preparatory Old Testament images finally fail. The paradox, the self communication of God who is beyond all utterance, yet is uttered, has its resolution only in the Form, the personal unity, of Christ. The revelation always at once transcends and assimilates the concrete historical forms by which it is mediated. The pagan materials are transformed by their historical deployment in the revelatione.g., the pagan myths of creation, of divine wars and marriages, the pagan wisdom-and in their deployment, they converge, hut not within the Old... (shrink)

_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)

What is unique about China is the agreement on all sides that men are naturally equal. This is the second of our two central themes. ...

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)

In this paper, we explore Peirce's work for insights into a theory of learning and cognition for education. Our focus for this exploration is Peirce's paper The Fixation of Belief (FOB), originally published in 1877 in Popular Science Monthly. We begin by examining Peirce's assertion that the study of logic is essential for understanding thought and reasoning. We explicate Peirce's view of the nature of reasoning itself—the characteristic guiding principles or ‘habits of mind’ that underlie acts of inference, the dimensions (...) of and interaction between doubt and belief, and his four methods of resolving or ‘fixing’ belief (i.e., tenacity, authority, a priori, and experimentation). The four methods are then juxtaposed against current models of teaching and learning such as constructivism, schema theory, situated cognition, and inquiry learning. Finally, we discuss Peirce's modes of inference as they relate educationally to the resolution of doubt and beliefs and offer an example of belief resolution from an experienced teacher in a professional development environment. (shrink)