The most remarkable aspect of Einstein’s 1946 address at Lincoln University is that it has vanished from Einstein’s recorded history. Its disappearance into a historical black hole symbolizes what seems to happen in the creation of a cultural icon. It is but one of many political statements by Einstein to have met such a fate, though his civil rights activism is most glaringly missing. One explanation for this historical amnesia is that those who shape our official memories felt that Einstein’s (...) “controversial” friends like Paul Robeson and activities like co‐chairing the anti‐lynching crusade might tarnish Einstein as an icon. That icon, sanctified by Time magazine when it dubbed Einstein “Person of the Century” at the end of 1999, is a myth, albeit a marvelous one. Yet it is not so much the motive for the omission but the consequence of it that should concern us. Americans and the millions of Einstein fans around the world are left unaware that he was an outspoken, passionate, committed antiracist. (shrink)

Technologies for deriving human neurons in vitro have transformed our ability to study cellular and molecular components of human neurotransmission. Three groups, including our own, have recently published methods for efficiently generating human serotonergic neurons in vitro. Remarkably, serotonergic neurons derived from each method robustly produce serotonin, express raphe genes, are electrically active, and respond to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in vitro. Two of the methods utilize transdifferentiation technology by overexpressing key serotonergic transcription factors. The third and most recent method (...) involves differentiating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to serotonergic neurons using developmental patterning cues. In this mini‐review, we briefly describe the developmental programs governing serotonergic specification in vivo and how they have been harnessed to achieve serotonergic differentiation in vitro. We discuss the distinct and overlapping features of the recently published methodologies and their value in the context of in vitro disease modeling.Also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

Volume 23 of _The Annual of Psychoanalysis _departs from its predecessors in offering three lengthy studies of unususal interest. Fred Levin's three-part examination of psychoanalysis and knowledge is a simulating, timely effort to relate "a psychoanalyst's thinking about knowledge" to both the clinical situation and what is now known about learning, memory, and knowledge formation in the neurosciences. The late Roy R. Grinker, Sr.'s history of analysis in Chicago was solicited by _The Annual_ in 1975 but declined for publication (...) at the time as too abrasive in tone and too critical in content. It is published here in unexpurgated form, and emerges as both a provocative historical document and a valuable commentary on the state of psychoanalytic education 20 years ago. Finally, in a fascinating contribution to applied analysis, Carol M. Ravenal reexamines Matisse's artwork in the context of the painter's arrested development and subsequent adult conflicts in "Henri Matisse: Love as Art - A Psychobiographical Study." These major contributions are supplemented by clinical and theoretical papers of characteristic excellence. John Gedo's probing evaluation of the "pragmatics of empathy" highlights how empathic responsiveness obliges analysts "to tailor our manner of discourse to the specific requirements of the analysand's current state." Michael Hoit argues that the hermeneutic point of view is an important addition to clinical theory, allowing analysts to understand phenomena outside the boundaries of specific schools and theories. Otto Kernberg examines the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of eating-disorder patients with borderline personality organization. Alice Rosen Soref proffers a revised understanding of the etiology and treatment of narcissistic pathology on the basis of three decades of infant research. And Samuel Weiss discusses the resistance to child analysis of parents who know their children need help but balk at the actual recommendation for treatment. In all, Volume 23 is a worthy response to the ferment of the present time. Encompassing a key period in psychoanalytic history, a scholarly investigation in applied analysis, and a thoughtful assessment of psychoanalysis and brain research, it offers a fine overview of the major tributaries of contemporary analytic scholarship. Supplement these monographic efforts with a careful selection of clinical and theoretical studies and you have an exemplary contribution to the literature. (shrink)

First published in 1977, Emotion, Thought and Therapy is a study of Hume and Spinoza and the relationship of philosophical theories of the emotions to psychological theories of therapy. Jerome Neu argues that the Spinozists are closer to the truth; that is, that thoughts are of greater importance than feelings in the classification and discrimination of emotional states. He then contends that if the Spinozists are closer to the truth, we have the beginning of an argument to show that (...) Freudian or analytic therapies make philosophic sense. Throughout the book, careful attention is paid to modern discussions in philosophy of mind and psychology, and materials from anthropology and other relevant disciplines are considered. At the centre of the discussion is the notion of ‘thought-dependence’. Therapies for psychological disorders are placed along a spectrum in accordance with the role they assign to thoughts. The Spinozist view of the emotions can be seen as at the extreme thought end of a corresponding spectrum of theories of the emotions. The book suggests that this stream may help explain the spectrum of therapeutic theories and the possibilities that exist for psychological development and change. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy, psychology and counselling. (shrink)

Christopher Boorse’s biostatistical theory of medical disorder claims that biological part-dysfunction (i.e., failure of an internal mechanism to perform its biological function), a factual criterion, is both necessary and sufficient for disorder. Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of medical disorder agrees that part-dysfunction is necessary but rejects the sufficiency claim, maintaining that disorder also requires that the part-dysfunction causes harm to the individual, a value criterion. In this paper, I present two considerations against the sufficiency claim. First, I analyze (...) Boorse’s central argument for the sufficiency claim, the “pathologist argument,” which takes pathologists’ intuitions about pathology as determinative of medical disorder and conclude that it begs the question and fails to support the sufficiency claim. Second, I present four counterexamples from the medical literature in which salient part-dysfunctions are considered nondisorders, including healthy disease carriers, HIV-positive status, benign mutations, and situs inversus totalis, thus falsifying the sufficiency claim and supporting the harm criterion. (shrink)

Assesses the presuppositions underlying Aristotle's political theory. The principle of teleology holds that human beings strive to fulfil certain natural ends such as rationality and social cooperation; the principle of perfectionism holds that the good for human beings consists in the attainment of these ends; the principle of community holds that individuals can attain the good only if they are subject to the authority of the community, including the state ; and the principle of rulership holds that the community can (...) function successfully only if order is imposed on it by rational agents. This chapter considers the extent to which these principles may be defended against powerful objections that have been raised by modern philosophers and scientists. Finally, it is pointed out that the modern theory of rights, which assumes a version of extreme individualism, faces serious difficulties, so that Aristotle's theory of rights, based on a moderately individualistic theory of justice, is an alternative still worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

According to Hempel, historians do not offer full-blown explanations. Rather, they typically present explanation-sketches which need filling out. On his account, … Such a sketch consists of a more or less vague indication of the laws and initial conditions considered as relevant, and it needs ‘filling out’ in order to turn into a full fledged explanation. This filling out requires further empirical research for which the sketch suggests the direction ….

There are shown to many ε-Hermitian spaces, and an isometry criterion is stated which holds under MA ℵ 1 and is false under $2^{\aleph_0}.

The Sphex story is an anecdote about a female digger wasp that at first sight seems to act quite intelligently, but subsequently is shown to be a mere automaton that can be made to repeat herself endlessly. Dennett and Hofstadter made this story well known and widely influential within the cognitive sciences, where it is regularly used as evidence that insect behavior is highly rigid. The present paper discusses the origin and subsequent empirical investigation of the repetition reported in the (...) Sphex story. The repetition was first observed by Henri Fabre in 1879, and the last empirical study I found was published in 1985. In contrast to the story's clear message, the actual results have always been equivocal: the endless repetition is not standard. In addition, this repetition itself has become a minor aside in the literature on digger wasps when put in the perspective of many other examples of adaptiveness and flexibility. Nevertheless, the story and its message have to this day persevered within the cognitive sciences. For some reason, the counterevidence has been neglected time and again. The paper closes by presenting two different but compatible hypotheses that could explain why humans keep repeating this particular anecdote. (shrink)

In 2002, Luciano Floridi published a paper called What is the Philosophy of Information?, where he argues for a new paradigm in philosophical research. To what extent should his proposal be accepted? Is the Philosophy of Information actually a new paradigm, in the Kuhninan sense, in Philosophy? Or is it only a new branch of Epistemology? In our discussion we will argue in defense of Floridi’s proposal. We believe that Philosophy of Information has the types of features had by other (...) areas already acknowledge as authentic in Philosophy. By way of an analogical argument we will argue that since Philosophy of Information has its own topics, method and problems it would be counter-intuitive not to accept it as a new philosophical area. To strengthen our position we present and discuss main topics of Philosophy of Information. (shrink)

Blanche DuBois, the tragic heroine of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire , has always been read as either “mad” from the start of the play or as a character who descends into “madness.” We argue that Streetcar adumbrates elements of trauma theory, specifically symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder such as involuntary reliving of traumatic events, dissociation, guilt, shame, denial, the shattering of the self, the compulsion to repeat the story of trauma, as well as the early stages of recovery (...) from trauma. We are the first to employ trauma theory as a critical framework through which to view Blanche and the dramaturgical devices used to concretize her post-traumatic state of mind. Williams’ heroine speaks from traumatic experience and not from psychic fabrications. Indeed, we contend that the play traces Blanche’s deliberate and self-conscious working through and mourning of the traumatic losses of the past, including her idealized, narcissistic conceptions of herself within a traumatic present. Thus she is more attuned to the most disturbing parts of reality and exhibits tragic insight born of traumatic experience. Critics who see Blanche as “mad” do not fully recognize her struggle to come to terms with trauma and loss within a culture of denial. We conclude that Streetcar stages the inextricable relation between the individual and social dialectics of trauma. (shrink)

In my essay I look at the specifics of the dispute between the Scottish metaphysician Andrew Baxter and the mathematician Colin MacLaurin in an attempt to identify the source or sources of their contradictory, yet in both cases Newtonian, positions regarding occasionalism. After some general introductory remarks about each thinker, I examine the metaphysical implications that Baxter sees as following from Newton's concept of vis inertiæ. Following this, I look at MacLaurin's commitment to the role of sense experience in natural (...) philosophy. Finally, I discuss the different passages from Newton's Opticks on which the two thinkers focus. (shrink)

John Dewey’s famous early twentieth-century account of the relationship between education as growth and democratic societies, presented in Democracy and Education, was later rejected by him, because it failed to properly identify the role of societal structures in growth and experience. In the later Ethics, Dewey attempts to correct that omission, and adumbrates the argument required to reconstruct his theory, which is an appeal to the role of institutions in individual growth and experience. It is the contention of this paper (...) that the inadequacy Dewey finds in his early account is more comprehensively explained by means of recent analyses in philosophy of society, especially John Searle’s ontological analysis. Following in Dewey’s direction, a more complete analysis of the role of society in the theory of growth is presented in terms of the deontological analysis of institutions. It is suggested that the current analyses in philosophy of society provide the means for the completion of Dewey’s views of both growth and experience, making Dewey’s account more useful today than it was a century ago. (shrink)

This book consists of a focused and systematic analysis of Freud’s implicit argument for unconscious mental states. The author employs the unique approach of applying contemporary philosophical methods, especially Kripke-Putnam essentialism, in analyzing Freud’s argument. The book elaborates how Freud transformed the intentionality theory of his Cartesian teacher Franz Brentano into what is essentially a sophisticated modern view of the mind. Indeed, Freud redirected Brentano's analysis of consciousness as intentionality into a view of consciousness-independent intentionalism about the mental that in (...) effect set the agenda for latter-twentieth-century philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It is argued that since its institutionalization in the 1970s, Uses and Gratifications research has been heavily influenced by applied economic theories about Expectancy Value and Subjective Expected Utility. Underlying these theories are assumptions about the acting individual having full mastery of situations. This idea is contrasted with the way in which action theory portrays action. Here, mastery of situations is not assumed at forehand, but depends on the situation and is something that has to be achieved. Action theories further (...) emphasize the influence of others. Applying these ideas to the study of media use means that more attention has to be paid to processes of gaining mastery, to situational influences, and to the influence of others. It is argued that discrete-time event history analysis may be a valuable tool to accomplish this. This may contribute to the study of several important questions in communication research, regarding audience flow and audience selectivity, and the social uses of media use. (shrink)