Expressed emotion is a measure of the family environment that has been demonstrated to be a reliable, cross-culturally valid psychosocial predictor of relapse in patients with schizophrenia, mood disorders, and other — also somatic — illnesses. Assessed during the Camberwell Family Interview CFI, relatives are classified as being high in EE if they make more than a specified threshold number of critical comments or show any signs of hostility or marked emotional overinvolvement. In schizophrenia, the median relapse rate for patients (...) returning after hospital discharge to a high EE environment is 48%, compared with 21% in a low EE-environment. In this article, the history of EE research will be outlined, and the evidence for the association between family EE and the course of schizophrenia and mood disorders will be presented. Conclusions about the treatment of major mental disorders are discussed as well as the directions of future studies. (shrink)

It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is (...) so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behavior that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research. (shrink)

Recent writers claim that responsibilist virtue epistemology courts skepticism, owing to the fact that most of us lack the virtues it deems necessary for justified belief and knowledge. A powerful version of this objection is the challenge from situationist social psychology pressed by Alfano (2012, 2013) and Olin and Doris (2014). This paper develops a new version of responsibilism that is immune from this objection, and shows that this view has many advantages over other forms of virtue epistemology. My responsibilism (...) dispenses with the ubiquitous but (I argue) mistaken idea that responsibilist virtue properties must be understood in terms of character traits. My view parallels an often overlooked form of virtue ethics suggested by Thomson (1997) that some situationists (e.g., Harman (2001)) have praised. That form shares with other forms the thought that virtue properties are normatively fundamental, but it adds that act-attaching ones are prior to person-attaching ones, and require no backing by character traits. Far from being an ad hoc retreat position, I argue that this view is independently attractive. (shrink)

Sound definitions of its basic concepts are fundamental to every scientific discipline. In some instances, like in the case of the ecosystem concept, the question arises if we can define such concepts at all. And if we can define them, how should we choose from the multiple definitions available? And what are the preconditions for a scientifically sound and useful definition? On the basis of the ecosystem concept, this paper illustrates a major, often neglected distinction in the definition of ecological (...) concepts, namely that between defining criteria and additional descriptive statements connected to those definitions. As is demonstrated by examples from the literature, mixing up these categories leads to false inferences about the properties of physical objects (e.g. a particular forest) subsumed by the concept (e.g. the ecosystem). As a further consequence, this inference becomes problematic in terms of theory development and/or the application of ecological concepts for management decisions. (shrink)

1. It seems that the description and explanation of what is going on in inanimate nature differ in important respects from the description and explanation of what is going on when that involves human beings or certain animals. The difference is sometimes expressed by saying that whereas in the former case what we describe and explain is always events, in the latter it is sometimes events and sometimes actions. Material objects, one might say, do not do anything, do not perform (...) actions, are not agents. The question arises whether the differences between material objects and agents, and consequently between events and actions, are such as to render inapplicable to actions the categories of explanation employed in the natural sciences. This question is sometimes answered in the affirmative. In particular, it is argued that actions do not admit of causal explanations, or of explanations in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or in terms which imply that the occurrence of an action is wholly determined. Or it is argued more cautiously, that, even if some kinds of action are so explicable, the most important kinds, those which are voluntary, intentional, deliberate, cannot be. In this essay, I argue for a third theory. It shares with the first two the view that in the narration and description of events and actions we do not employ exactly the same categories and that, therefore, in the explanation of one, reference may have to be made to types of fact not mentioned in the explanation of the other. Thus, in the explanation of why I raised my arm, I may have to refer to my purpose, intention or aim, whereas in the explanation of my arm’s going up, this may be irrelevant. Nevertheless, the theory here defended maintains that all kinds of action, including intentional ones, admit of causal or deterministic explanations. (shrink)

Sometimes, people who are otherwise eligible to donate blood are unduly deferred from donating. “Unduly” indicates a gap where a deferral policy misstates what exposes potential donors to risk and so defers more donors than is justified. Since the error is at the policy-level, it’s natural and understandable to focus criticism on reformulating or eliminating the offending policies. Policy change is undoubtedly the right goal because the policy is what prevents otherwise safe eligible donors from donating needed blood. But focusing (...) exclusively at the policy-level passes over a largely undiscussed question: if policy change takes time and there is an urgent need for blood now, then what should unduly deferred donors do in the meanwhile? Blood banks and federal agencies recommend that deferred donors donate their time or money until they become eligible, but blood is a non-fungible good: donated cash or volunteered time cannot replace a transfusion. Further, this request ignores that otherwise eligible donors could safely donate their blood in addition to their time and money. Here is the central question I will focus on in this paper: is a donor morally justified in lying on a questionnaire to donate blood if they justifiably believe that their blood poses no risk to a recipient and knows that honestly answering a donor questionnaire would unduly defer them from donating? (shrink)

Volume 2 contains both notebooks of "Time Management (Max) I and II" and thereby Gödel’s applied individual ethics, which he received among others through his teacher Heinrich Gomperz. Gödel thus incorporates the ethical ideal of self-perfection into his opus. The volume is prefaced by an introduction to relevant considerations from the ethics of the Stoics as well as ancient dietetics, which provide the philosophical background to understand Gödel’s approach. In addition, editor Eva-Maria Engelen presents how this fits into the context (...) of Gödel’s Philosophical Notebooks. (shrink)

This volume contains Constant's remarkable speeches to the Tribunal, published after all available sources, including the minutes of the sessions, with records of all his interventions and of a lost speech, fragments of an uncompleted work »De la possibilité d'une constitution républicaine dans un grand pays«, edited on the basis of all the manuscripts, a number of other texts from the same period, and a partial copy of »Des circonstances actuelles« by Mme de Staël, which left its mark on the (...) uncompleted work and is essential to an informed understanding of the initial foundations of Constant's political thinking. This rich collection of texts presented from an unwonted perspective is rounded off, as always, by a chronology, bibliographic resources, and an index of proper names. (shrink)

Dieser Band ist der erste Teil einer Lekture von Hegels Phanomenologie des Geistes, in dem die ersten drei Hauptkapitel - d.h. -Bewusstsein-, -Selbstbewusstsein- und -Vernunft- - von Hegels erstem Hauptwerk umfassend kommentiert werden. Der Text entstand dabei wahrend eines uber viele Jahre laufenden Seminars, welches am Institut fur Philosophie der Universitat Wien unter Leitung von Professor Dr. Friedrich Grimmlinger abgehalten wurde und in dem der Hegelsche Text gemeinsam Satz fur Satz gelesen und ausgelegt wurde.".

ABSTRACTThis article pursues the question of the essence of Europe. It does not lie in the religious, cultural and geographical demarcations, but in the openness towards the other. The particular contribution of religion in this could lay in its apocalyptic tradition. This must not be understood as a violent end of history beset by fear. Rather it means the end of all virtual images and identities which serve to mask the fundamental vulnerability of man.