This paper provides a brief overview and critique of the dominant objectivist understanding and use of illness narrative in Enlightenment (scientific) medicine and ethics, as well as several revisionist accounts, which reflect the evolution of this approach. In light of certain limitations and difficulties endemic in the objectivist understanding of illness narrative, an alternative phronesis approach to medical ethics influenced by Charles Taylor’s account of the interpretive nature of human agency and language is examined. To this end, the account of (...) interpretive medical responsibility previously described by Schultz and Carnevale as "clinical phronesis" (based upon Taylor’s notion of "strong" or "radical evaluation") is reviewed and expanded. The thesis of this paper is that illness narrative has the ability to benefit patients as well as the potential to cause harm or iatrogenic effects. This benefit or harm is contingent upon how the story is told and understood. Consequently, these tales are not simply "nice stories," cathartic gestures, or mere supplements to scientific procedures and decision making, as suggested by the objectivist approach. Rather, they open the agent to meanings that provide a context for explanation and evaluation of illness episodes and therapeutic activities. This understanding provides indicators (guides) for right action. Hence, medical responsibility as clinical phronesis involves, first, the patient and provider’s coformulation and cointerpretation of what is going on in the patient’s illness narrative, and second, the patient and provider’s response to interpretation of the facts of illness and what they signify–not simply a response to the brute facts of illness, alone. The appeal to medical responsibility as clinical phronesis thus underscores the importance of getting the patient’s story of illness right. It is anticipated that further elaboration concerning the idea of clinical phronesis as interpretive illness narrative will provide a new foundation for medical ethics and decision making. (shrink)

Study on perception (pratyakṣa) according to the Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, an autocommentary by Bhāsarvajña, 10th century Kashmiri scholar, on his Nyāyasāra, aphorisms on the Hindu philosophy of logic (Nyāya).

Ancient Rus church music is one of the brightest pages of spiritual and artistic culture. It is included in the synthesis of arts along with construction, monumental and fresco painting, icon painting, fine plastics, applied art, literature.

One of the most essential characteristics of living material—indeed, according to many, its most essential characteristic—is the fact that it is irritable. A living cell responds to sudden environmental changes, and typically a cell of a given sort responds in a definite and particular way no matter what the nature of the stimulation. Thus when a muscle cell is exposed to sudden heat, to sudden cold, to a sharp mechanical impact, to ultraviolet radiation, or to an electric current, it shortens. (...) Similarly, a nerve fiber responds in its own characteristic way, and this response is independent of the nature of the stimulation. In general, mechanical impacts, ultraviolet radiation, electric shocks, and certain types of chemical substances are stimulating agents for many diverse types of protoplasm and they serve to arouse it to activity. The response of protoplasm to stimulation may be prevented by anesthetics. These are substances which nullify the effect of a stimulus without killing or seriously injuring the protoplasm. The remarkable fact is that there are general anesthetics, substances which in much the same concentration can prevent protoplasmic activity in widely different protoplasmic systems. Many fat solvents, such as ether, are general anesthetics. Magnesium salts also behave as anesthetics for many different types of cells. (shrink)

Konstantin Leont'ev is one of those Russian thinkers about whom much has been said and written both in Russia and abroad. Interest in his works has increased steadily in the past five years: collections of his works are being published, special conferences are being held, and articles and monographs are being written. In the process it turns out that a thinker who died a hundred years ago is perceived in Russia as "our contemporary," as a clairvoyant and a prophet, but (...) also in large measure as a teacher to whom many are inclined to turn in their searches for intellectual world-view and ideological orientations. (shrink)

Сборник докладов предназначен для специалистов.

В монографии рассматривается проблема целостности духовного смысла в русской художественности на фоне социокультурной динамики. Для специалистов.

В сборнике представлены очерки, герои которых - художники, философы, священнослужители, ученые, император Индии, французская крестьянка, Учитель Гималайского Братства и другие - сыграли немаловажную роль в земном творчестве Космической эволюции. Для широкого круга читателей.

The article is dedicated to the early, Paris period of life and literary work of Nikolay Gumilyov (1906–1908), which is still insufficiently studied and understood by scholars. The paper aims to study the influence of this period on shaping Gumilyov’s personality and his spiritual values and aspirations, polishing of his literary taste, gradual gaining of an independent ideological and aesthetic platform and development of his inimitable poetic style. – The research for the paper was based on the comprehensive historical and (...) cultural approach, with application of literary and historical analysis techniques. This approach was used to consider the memoirs of his contemporaries, Gumilyov’s letters to Valery Bryusov, as well as his poetry, prose and art criticism during that period. Particular attention is paid to the history of publishing Sirius magazine and to such poorly studied aspects as the symbolic meaning of the magazine name and the first manifestations of acmeism in its aesthetic platform. The authors emphasize the fruitful and creative character of Gumilyov’s friendship with Sirius co-editor, artist and art critic M.V. Farmakovsky, whose name is unfairly forgotten. – They come to the conclusion that the “first Paris period” was not only the novice time for Gumilyov but also the start of his personal and creative self-identity. It was in Paris that the strong and persistent character of the poet was formed, his skills honed and his inimitable style created, with the colour-sound synthesis of the striking romantic picturesqueness and a clear strong word. Paris was the place of polishing the artistic taste, developing a comprehensive system of views, finding main poetic motifs and setting life goals of Gumilyov, a rising star of the Silver Age. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The article presents exploring the cultural and anthropological traits of consumers and producers of cultural services and products in the digital epoch. There have been singled out two types of cultural subjectivity according to the aim of a person’s activity in the virtual net: either production of things, services, and technologies or the consumption and creative use of all mentioned innovations. So these sociocultural formations are called "geek" and "chic" subcultures. _Theoretical basis._ The historical genealogy of the definitions was (...) analyzed, so as the changes in social esteem of the contribution of geeky persons to modern art and design practices. Social and cultural identities of those who belong to the modern youth-subcultural communities have been formed according to the topology and temporality of digital trends. To explain the worldview characteristics of the members of those subcultures the concept of "the New Middle Ages" was used to discover the values and pursuits of those who represent geek and chic subcultures. The study is based on the theoretical works of such classical authors as A. Toffler, and Z. Bauman, as well as current investigators of youth cultures. They are Calum Finister, Thomas V. Pollet, Nick Neave, Jessica McCain, Billy Wong. The chic subculture is oriented toward the imitation of visual images, consumer habits, and the way of life of successful (or seemed to be such) people. Glamorous followers need to receive approvals and likes from like-minded people. The geek subculture is more inner-sense-oriented. It unites intellectuals and activists who have common creative intentions. _Originality._ There have been analyzed the main attributes and features of such modern subcultures were conditionally named chic and geek. They were analyzed in the context of the concept of the New Middle Ages. _Conclusions._ The virtual user’s life world seems to be diverse only quantitatively, but qualitatively it is as narrow, mythopoetic, and esoterically uncritical as the world of the Medieval person, who used to live the whole life in the same place, mai in one’s village. But thanks to the merger of the IT industry with effective social management, the geek culture becomes a powerful super-subculture that defends values of social good, industrial productivity, and cultural creativity. Chic subculture creates new trends in fashion and art discourse. It develops modern lifestyles, its visual images with which our era will be associated in the future. (shrink)

D. Blumbergi identifies three kinds of moral criticism: (i) of an individual for violating a moral practice in his society, (2) of a moral practice but not the individual who participates in it, and (3) of both an individual and the practice in accordance with which he acts ('practice-personal' criticism) (p. 348). According to Mr. Blumberg, successful derivation of a conclusive 'ought'-statement from statements about socially-created obligations would show how moral criticisms of type 1 are justified. Moral criticisms of type (...) 2 would still be allowed, but not those of type 3. -/- I discuss the following points made by Blumberg: (A) Criticism of type 1 is 'the most common kind of moral judgment' (p. 356); (B) Searle dispensed 'with the conclusive aspect of the conclusion, and with it the finality of the derivation, when it began to seem unrealizable' (p. 356); (C) 'It is impossible to derive conclusive "ought"-statements embodying our traditional moral outlook from statements about socially-created obligations, . . .' (p. 355); (D) 'Either we surrender the attempt to derive a conclusive "ought" -statement from statements about socially-created obligations, or else we must surrender our right to make practice-personal criticisms' (p. 357). -/- I argue that conclusiveness in judgments, both moral and non-moral, is always relative to the range of reasons weighed, the implications of action considered. Therefore 'ought' must always be taken to be context-bound just as moral principles are taken to be defeasible, elliptical. This interpretation of 'ought' and 'conclusive' as bound to a context, point of view or framework, is quite consistent with Searle's distinction between what is internal and external to an institution. (shrink)