Psychoanalysis was characterised by Freud as ‘the science of the unconscious mind’, and he never gave up hope that future developments in the neurosciences might contribute to a scientific foundation of psychoanalysis. This book explores the critical interdisciplinary dialogue between contemporary psychoanalysis and cognitive science, building bridges between researchers and clinicians to enable a better understanding of their passions, professional realities and engagement with psychoanalysis. Each chapter presents clinical case studies of the unconscious, alongside key areas of debate and development, (...) including: what are the differences between the conceptualisation of ‘the unconscious’ in psychoanalysis and in cognitive science? Are core concepts of psychoanalysis still plausible? And are such understandings of the unconscious still central to treating patients in contemporary psychotherapy? (shrink)

BackgroundIn many Western countries like Germany, the social integration of children with an immigrant background has become an urgent social tasks. The probability of them living in high-risk environments and being disadvantaged regarding health and education-related variables is still relatively higher. Yet, promoting language acquisition is not the only relevant factor for their social integration, but also the support of earlier developmental processes associated with adequate early parenting in their first months of life. The Emotional Availability Scales measure the quality (...) of caregiver-child-interactions as an indicator of the quality of their relationship and thus of such early parenting, focusing on mutual and emotional aspects of their interaction.MethodThis pilot study examined in a randomized controlled trial the effects of the prevention project First Steps regarding the hypothesis that the Emotional Availability improved to a greater extent in “difficult-to-reach” immigrant mother-child dyads in a psychoanalytically oriented early intervention compared to a usual care intervention offered by paraprofessionals with an immigrant background. A sample of N = 118 immigrant women in Germany from 37 different countries and their children was compared with regard to the parental EA-dimensions sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness and non-hostility and the child dimensions responsiveness to and involvement of the caregiver in the pre-post RCT design.Results and ConclusionDifferent from what was expected, repeated ANOVAs revealed no significant pre-post group differences for the parental dimensions. For the child dimensions the effect of time of measurement was highly significant, which can be interpreted as mostly natural developmental effects. Still, on the level of simple main effects for each intervention, only in the FIRST STEPS groups child responsiveness significantly improved. When controlled for confounding variables, a significant interaction effect for maternal sensitivity in favor of the FIRST STEPS intervention was found. The systematic group differences indicate that the more extensive and professional intervention, focusing on the individual needs of the participants, is more suitable to support the quality of the mother-child-relationship amongst immigrant mother-child dyads than usual care. The results are discussed taking into account the context of the maternal migration process and potential maternal traumatization.Clinical Trial Registration[https://clinicaltrials.gov], identifier [DRKS00004632]. (shrink)

Children who live on the margins of society are disadvantaged in achieving their developmental potential because of the lack of a necessary stable environment and nurturing care. Many early prevention programs aim at mitigating such effects, but often the evaluation of their long-term effect is missing. The aim of the study presented here was to evaluate such long-term effects in two prevention programs for children-at-risk growing up in deprived social environments focusing on child attachment representation as the primary outcome as (...) well as on self-reflective capacities of teachers taking care of these children. The latter was a key component for promoting resilient behavior in children. Five hundred and twenty-six children aged 36 to 60 months at risk due to immigration status, low family socio-economic status and child behavior were examined in a cluster-randomized study comparing two preventions, the psychodynamic, attachment-based holistic approach EARLY STEPS (ES) with the classroom based FAUSTLOS (FA) for their efficacy. Primary outcome was the child attachment representation measured by the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST). Secondary outcomes were derived from (a) the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF: problem behaviors, including anxiety/depressive symptoms, emotional-reactive and somatic problems, social withdrawal, aggressive behavior, and attention deficit), from (b) the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, parent version: resilience and wellbeing) and (c) Self-Reflective Scales for teachers (SRS: self-reflective capacities of teachers). Compared to baseline, attachment and behavioral problems improved in both programs. ES led to more secure and more organized attachment representations (medium effect sizes). Aggressive behavior and externalizing problems were reduced in the FA group compared with ES, particularly in boys (medium effect sizes). Self-reflective capacities of the teachers increased only in the ES group. High correlation between children’s attachment type with the number of social risk factors and the increase of problematic social behavior strongly indicate that an increase in teachers’ self-reflective capacities helps to change children’s attachment patterns which thus strengthens the resilience of these children-at-risk [An ethical vote from LPPKJP 2009-02-25 was obtained and the trial registered; Clinical trial registration information: The trial was registered 14.02.2012 (DRKS00003500;https://www.drks.de)]. (shrink)

Background: The transition to child care is a challenging time in a child’s life and leads to elevated levels of cortisol. These elevations may be influenced by the quality of the mother-child-relationship. However, remarkably little is known about cortisol production in response to the beginning of child care among children-at-risk such as children with an immigrant background. However, attending kindergarten or any other child day-care institution can for example have a compensating effect on potential language deficits thus improving the educational (...) opportunities of these children. Method: Data of a subsample of N = 24 “hard-to-reach” mother-child dyads was collected in the context of the psychoanalytic early prevention project “First Steps”. The project focuses on the earliest integration of children with an immigrant background by supporting parenting capacities in the critical phase of migration and early parenthood. Children’s hair cortisol concentration (HCC) was assessed one week before (mean age = 38.77 months) and three months after kindergarten entry (mean age = 42.26 months). Hair analysis was conducted for both times of measurement, reflecting the first 3 months after kindergarten entry and 3 months prior. Furthermore, the emotional quality of the mother-child-relationship was assessed with the help of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) shortly before kindergarten entry when the children were about three years old (mean age = 37.2). Results and Conclusion: Children’s mean cumulated HCC was higher after kindergarten entry than before. The increase correlated negatively with several dimensions of the EAS. Repeated measures ANCOVA revealed that particularly responsive children and children who had experienced less intrusive mother-child-relationships demonstrated lower elevations in HCC after kindergarten entry. Furthermore, a decreased EA score was found in all EA dimensions, besides the dimension “mother’s non-hostility”, indicating problematic EA within the mother-child-relationships of the sample. The results suggest that children with an immigrant background who experience more emotional available mother-child-relationships seem to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry more effectively, indicated by lower cortisol elevations after entry. This implicates that supporting early mother-child-relationships by intervention may have a positive effect on the children’s ability to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry thus promoting child development. (shrink)

Die Autoren berichten über die erste kontrollierte Psychotherapiestudie, die psychoanalytische und kognitiv-verhaltenstherapeutische Langzeitpsychotherapien mit randomisierter und präferierter Zuweisung mit­einander vergleicht. In vier Behandlungszentren wurden 554 chronisch depressive Patienten interviewt, von denen 252 in die Studie aufgenommen werden konnten. In den Selbsteinschätzungen der Patienten zeigten sich große und stabile Veränderungen. Die vollständige Remissionsrate (für BDI) lag nach einem Jahr bei 34 % und stieg auf 45 % nach drei Jahren. Analoge Ergebnisse zeigten sich in den Einschätzungen der unabhängigen, bezogen auf die (...) Therapieverfahren verblindeten Rater (QIDS). Entgegen ihrer Hypothesen fanden die Autoren aber keinen statistisch signifikanten Unterschied zwischen den Verfahren und auch keine Effektunterschiede zwischen randomisierter Therapiezuweisung und Behandlung mit der präferierten Psychotherapie. Besser als in anderen Studien sind die erzielten Remissionsraten, die zeigten, dass chronisch depressive Patienten von Langzeitpsychotherapien profitieren. (shrink)

In this essay I defend Augustine’s conception of the body against critics who maintain that Augustine ignores the fact of embodiment in his early writings. Instead of devaluing the body as some of his critics have done, a careful analysis of his writings reveals a more positive side of the body. In fact, a more positive assessment of the body is necessary if Augustine is to overcome the negative view of the body he held as a Manichaean. The body also (...) holds a prominent place in Augustine’s early writings because it functions as a reminder of the fall and the penalty of sin that humankind must endure as a result of its misuse in paradise. Despite the fact that Augustine’s dependence on Platonism is at its strongest during this period, he develops an understanding of human nature that is compatible with Christian belief. In order to portray the positive aspects of the human body, I focus on three related topics: the body and its use, sensation, and the art of medicine. These topics correspond to the first three degrees of the soul that Augustine mentions in De quantitate animae: animation of the body, sensation through the body, and art about the body. (shrink)

Since listeners usually look at the speaker's face, gestural information has to be absorbed through peripheral visual perception. In the literature, it has been suggested that listeners look at gestures under certain circumstances: 1) when the articulation of the gesture is peripheral; 2) when the speech channel is insufficient for comprehension; and 3) when the speaker him- or herself indicates that the gesture is worthy of attention. The research here reported employs eye tracking techniques to study the perception of gestures (...) in face-to-face interaction. The improved control over the listener's visual channel allows us to test the validity of the above claims. We present preliminary findings substantiating claims 1 and 3, and relate them to theoretical proposals in the literature and to the issue of how visual and cognitive attention are related. (shrink)

L’idéologie universaliste a longtemps cantonné les études gays et lesbiennes à un petit cercle de militants exclus des institutions académiques. Cette mise à l’écart présuppose que l’étude d’une minorité n’intéresse et n’éclaire que cette minorité. Gay New York, dont le titre original est Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, en est le démenti. L’importance de cette somme dépasse amplement son cadre thématique. En effet, l’ouvrage de George Chau...

Geognosy versus Geology: National Modes of Thought and Cultural Practices Concerning Space and Time in Competition. Natural science investigators at the end of the eighteenth century made use of conflicting labels to position their respective preferred fields of activity in the Earth sciences. This mania for labelling marked their break with natural science and the umbrella term ‘mineralogy’. In this conflict situation of specialist classifications and explanations, two terms in particular were established: geognosy and geology, which covered the very promising (...) project of research in the areas of the ‘origin of the Earth’ and the ‘formation of the Earth’. These and the associated research goals were subsequently accorded a dazzling career. Proceeding from the conceptual core‐meaning in the formation of terms und its semantic spectrum and conceptual shifts in a time of change, my study will look at the identity and heterogeneity functions of geology and geognosy. For whereas in French and English speaking countries the term geology came to be used exclusively (geology, géologie), this was avoided in German, particularly because the term geognosy was preferred. These national differences may be explained with reference to the different cultural and national styles of science: for example the social embedding of geology in the culture of the English gentleman or the French museum culture, and the close connection of ‘German’ geognosy to mining. A further starting point in the analysis of the double use of both geology and geognosy in German speaking countries until 1840 is provided by the different references to temporalization and spatialization of the two terms. And we should also include the practical implications and the epistemic requirements that were bound up with the defence of geognosy in the German speaking world. (shrink)

With disagreement, doubts, or ambiguous grounds in end–of-life decisions, doctors are advised to involve a clinical ethics committee. However, little has been published on doctors’ experiences with discussing an end-of-life decision in a CEC. As part of the quality assurance of this work, we wanted to find out if clinicians have benefited from discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs and why. We will disseminate some Norwegian doctors’ experiences when discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs, based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen Norwegian physicians (...) who had brought an end-of-life decision case to a CEC. Almost half of the cases involved conflicts with the patients’ relatives. In a majority of the cases, there was uncertainty about what would be the ethically preferable solution. Reasons for referring the case to the CEC were to get broader illumination of the case, to get perspective from people outside the team, to get advice, or to get moral backing on a decision already made. A great majority of the clinicians reported an overall positive experience with the CECs’ discussions. In cases where there was conflict, the clinicians reported less satisfaction with the CECs’ discussions. The study shows that most doctors who have used a CEC in an end-of-life decision find it useful to have ethical and/or legal aspects illuminated, and to have the dilemma scrutinized from a new perspective. A systematic discussion seems to be significant to the clinicians. (shrink)

Many French-speaking approaches to argumentation are deeply rooted in a linguistic background. Hence, they “naturally” tend to adopt a descriptive stance on argumentation. This is why the issue of “the virtues of argumentation”—and, specifically, the question of what makes an argument virtuous—is not central to them. The argumentative norms issue nevertheless can-not be discarded, as it obviously is crucial to arguers themselves: the latter often behave as if they were invested with some kind of argumentative policing duty when involved in (...) dissensual exchanges. We describe several researches developing a descriptive approach to such ordinary argumentative policing: we claim that the virtues of argumentation may be an issue even for an amoral analyst. We will connect this issue with linguistic remarks on the lexicon of refutation in English and in French. (shrink)

This literature review of professionalism was prepared by San Jose State University graduate student Marianne Allison as a research committee project of the Mass Communication and Society Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The project was prepared under the guidance of Professor Diana Stover Tillinghast. It reviews the literature on two approaches to professionalism in general and of the professionalism of journalists in particular: the ?structural?functionalist approach?; and the ?power approach.?; Traditional and recent discussions of the (...) nature of professionalism in occupational sociology are presented. Studies of the professionalism of journalists both in the United States and cross?culturally are critiqued. The paper suggests several areas of fruitful research, and contains an extensive bibliography. (shrink)

Do you want to make sure you · Don’t invest your money in the next Enron? · Don’t go to work for the next WorldCom right before the crash? · Identify and solve problems in your organization before they send it crashing to the ground? Marianne Jennings has spent a lifetime studying business ethics---and ethical failures. In demand nationwide as a speaker and analyst on business ethics, she takes her decades of findings and shows us in The Seven Signs (...) of Ethical Collapse the reasons that companies and nonprofits undergo ethical collapse, including: · Pressure to maintain numbers · Fear and silence · Young ’uns and a larger-than-life CEO · A weak board · Conflicts · Innovation like no other · Belief that goodness in some areas atones for wrongdoing in others Don’t watch the next accounting disaster take your hard-earned savings, or accept the perfect job only to find out your boss is cooking the books. If you’re just interested in understanding the (not-so) ethical underpinnings of business today, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse is both a must-have tool and a fascinating window into today’s business world. (shrink)

Deliberative processes provide an important alternative input to environmental politics as they may, in contrast to often used market simulations, provide an arena for 1) discussion of lay participants’ values, 2) articulating arguments grounded in other values than consequentialistic, and 3) capturing weakly comparable values. A case study of a Citizens’ Jury (CJ) on genetically modified plants was used to investigate how the framing of the process affected the attitude formation among the citizens. The formal set up of this specific (...) CJ made value discussions less relevant. While it opened for value plurality, it failed to facilitate the articulation of weakly comparable values. (shrink)

Background Since the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands, there has been a lively public debate on assisted dying that may influence the way patients talk about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide with their physicians and the way physicians experience the practice of EAS. Aim To show what developments physicians see in practice and how they perceive the influence of the public debate on the practice of EAS. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of in-depth interviews with 28 Dutch (...) physicians who had experience with a complex case of EAS. Respondents were recruited both by the network of physicians working for SCEN as well as via a national questionnaire, wherein participating physicians could indicate their willingness to be interviewed. Results Three themes came up in analysing the interviews. First, the interviewed physicians experienced a change in what patients would expect from them: from a role as an involved caregiver to being the mere performer of EAS. Second, interviewees said that requests for EAS based on non-medical reasons came up more frequently and wondered if EAS was the right solution for these requests. Last, respondents had the impression that the standards of EAS are shifting and that the boundaries of the EAS regulation were stretched. Conclusions The perceived developments could make physicians less willing to consider a request for EAS. Our results also raise questions about the role of physicians and of EAS in society. (shrink)

Knowledge engineering is the term given to the process of developing expert systems and knowledge engineers are the people who acquire the requisite knowledge from experts and structure that knowledge into a useable computer program. As knowledge engineering becomes a more accepted technology, there is increasing concern about attendant social costs, such as job displacement or possible exploitation of experts. This paper reports on our efforts to explore this latter issue by scrutinizing how knowledge engineers think about the domain expert (...) and the role that person plays in system development. To accomplish this aim, we asked several samples of novice engineers to write story completions to a preamble that describes a knowledge engineer encountering a reluctant expert who may be fearing job loss if the system is implemented. The resulting accounts were content-analysed for insights as to how novice system builders think about experts. The results indicate that experts are conceived more as a tool to be used rather than a person to be respected. (shrink)

An understanding of the ethical implications of their work is now essential for all scientists. This accessible textbook clearly explains bioethical theories and their philosophical foundations to science students, enabling them to confidently take part in the key ethical debates of biotechnology. Over 200 activities introduce topics for personal reflection and discussion points encourage students to think for themselves and build their own arguments. Highlighting the potential pitfalls for those new to bioethics, each chapter features boxes providing factual information and (...) outlining the philosophical background. Accompanying online podcasts by the author (two of whose podcasts on iTunesU have attracted over 3 million downloads) explain points that might be difficult for beginners. Detailed case studies provide an insight into real-life examples of bioethical problems. Within-chapter essay questions and quizzes, along with end-of-chapter review questions, allow students to check their understanding and encourage broader thinking about the topics discussed. (shrink)

This paper discusses the definition of argumentation as a means for persuading an audience on the acceptability of a thesis. It is argued that persuasion is a goal that relates more to the communicative situation, the type of interaction or the type of discourse, rather than to the argumentative nature of it. Departing from the analysis of a short conversational sequence between people who agree on an issue and nevertheless argue, I suggest that a definition of argumentation in terms of (...) persuasion fails to account for what people are actually doing in these situations. I propose instead that several functions may be assigned to argumentation when considering the context in which it is produced: a cognitive function (which helps participants to elaborate a position on the discussed issue), and an identifying function (which enables them to portray themselves through the expression and the justification of their opinion). In the case analyzed here, a third function to which the argumentative activity contributes can also be identified, namely the enhancing of the emotional tonality of the relationship between the participants. While it becomes clear from the discussion of this argumentative sequence that the participants do not seek to persuade each other or some third party, it is not suggested that argumentation never aims at persuading an audience, but rather that persuasion cannot be considered as a defining feature of argumentation. (shrink)

Social scientists and scholars in the humanities all rely on first-person descriptions of experience to understand how subjects construct their worlds. The problem they always face is how to integrate first-person accounts with an impersonal stance. Over the course of the twentieth century, this problem was compounded as the concept of experience itself came under scrutiny. First hailed as a wellspring of knowledge and the weapon that would vanquish metaphysics and Cartesianism by pragmatists like Dewey and James, by the century's (...) end experience had become a mere vestige of both, a holdover from seventeenth-century empiricist metaphysics. This devaluation of experience has left us bereft, unable to account for first-person perspectives and for any kind of agency or intentionality. This book takes on the critique of empiricism and the skepticism with regard to experience that has issued from two seemingly disparate intellectual strains of thought: anti-foundationalist and holistic philosophy of science and epistemology and feminist critiques of identity politics. Both strains end up marginalizing experience as a viable corrective for theory, and both share notions of human beings and cognition that cause the problem of the relation between experience and our theories to present itself in a particular way. Indeed, they render experience an intractable problem by opening up a gap between a naturalistic understanding of human beings and an understanding of humans as cultural entities, as non-natural makers of meaning. Marianne Janack aims to close this gap, to allow us to be naturalistic and hermeneutic at once. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, the pragmatist tradition, and ecological psychology, her book rescues experience as natural contact with the world. (shrink)

L'apparition de la poupée Barbie en 1959 ­ c'est-à-dire la substitution d'une poupée femme à une poupée enfant ­ marque une rupture dans la socialisation des petites filles. Pur produit des années 1950, la poupée Barbie s'adapte à toutes les décennies qui suivent car elle est avant tout le symbole d'une société de consommation qui sait récupérer toutes les modes, même celles qui paraissent les plus avancées. Elle est aussi le symbole du simulacre dans un monde qui est de plus (...) en plus le monde du faux-semblant. (shrink)

While recent studies have illuminated the social and cultural realities underlying the cult of the saints in late antiquity, this communication focuses on Augustine’s beliefs regarding the metaphysical status of the saints’ humanity after death and the interaction between the saints and temporal human beings. Augustine’s representation of the lives of the saints in works such as his Sermons on the saints, On the care of the dead, the City of God, and On the predestination of the saints and On (...) perseverance at the end of his life reveals the dichotomies in his thinking on the saints with which both he and his reader must contend. The most striking dichotomies are those between popular, or lay, Christianity, and the intellectualized Christianity of a bishop like Augustine; the different historical periods to which Augustine’s works refer, namely, the persecution of the martyr-saints in the third century and faithful Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries; and the different metaphysical and spiritual frameworks of the here and now and the life to come. Against the background of these dichotomies that surface in Augustine’s writings on the saints, I explore the coherence of Augustine’s doctrine of the saints with respect to the following three concerns: a consideration of who the saints are, and what their status is after death, the relevance of the interaction between the saints and temporal human beings for living a good life now in preparation for death, and the effect that the doctrines of predestination and election have on Augustine’s determination of what can be known with respect to who is and is not saved among the saints. (shrink)

Active pluralism, an idea advanced by Steve Stevaert, former leader of the Flemish Socialist political party, has been commonly accepted among most progressive citizens. It is now a political, social and pedagogical ‘hot’ topic. Anyone wishing to be perceived as ‘open’ pleads earnestly for interreligious dialogue. Instead of passive tolerance, which too often leads to indifference, the other should now be entitled to our active concern. What is more, it benefits society as a whole. Congenial as this is, the plea (...) for active pluralism remains rather vague. This vagueness has the advantage that everyone can embrace active pluralism and be a winner. However, if active pluralism is to be more than just the latest novelty it will require conceptual clarity. Only then can it be assessed on whether it succeeds in offering a better alternative to passive pluralism. In this article I reflect on the Flemish discussion on active pluralism and intend to articulate the philosophical, anthropological and hermeneutical presuppositions underlying the concept. To do so, I take as my starting point the recent publication by the philosopher Guido Vanheeswijck, Tolerantie en actief pluralisme. De afgewezen erfenis van Erasmus, More en Gillis. (shrink)

The pluralist hypothesis as popularised by John Hick, which postulates the rough equality of religious traditions, has gained wide approval especially within interreligious circles. Nonetheless, Hick remains one of the most contested philosophers of religion of the twentieth century. Most notably, theologians have been highly critical; their polemical reactions to his pluralist hypothesis reveal their irritation. The question is: from where does this irritation arise? Why are these theologians so offended by a philosopher? How are we to understand the polemics (...) that have arisen in response to Hick’s pluralism? In this article I suggest that the controversy surrounding Hick’s pluralist hypothesis relates to the way he develops his philosophical reflections in a theological direction. There is something wrong with the way he divides the roles between philosophy and theology. I regard the discussion, which emerged from Hicks philosophy of religion as a prototype for a reflection on the complex relation between both disciplines. (shrink)

French cultural theorist and urbanist Paul Virilio is best known for his writings on media, technology, and architecture. Gathered here in _A Winter’s Journey _are four remarkable conversations in which Virilio and architectural writer Marianne Brausch look at a twentieth century characterized by enormous technological acceleration and by technocultural accidents of barbarism and horror. The dialogues in _A Winter_’_s Journey—_structured loosely around the dates 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1980—chart Virilio’s intimate intellectual biography, from his childhood lived against the unstable (...) backdrop of a heavily bombed, wartime Nantes to maturity in a crisis space that is neither entirely militarized nor yet fully civilian, but somewhere between the two. In the course of these conversations, Virilio and Brausch ultimately find hope that in understanding the events of the last century and the cultural responses spawned by them, we can create a more humane era that is more adept at handling the transformations of its technology and culture. _A Winter’s Journey _is a revealing and engaging look into the intellectual life and ideas of one of the most influential theorists of contemporary civilization. (shrink)

This contribution presents an adult education workshop implemented in the field of early childhood education. One of the specificities of education and care practices lies in the competences of the professionals to give a central role to the detailed observation of situations, in order to adjust their modalities of action. How can such observational work be developed and transformed? A participatory research-training approach aims to support the co-construction of an analytical view on observable phenomena in the course of interactions. In (...) a perspective of interactional analysis, it focuses on the modalities that favor the construction of such an analytical posture. (shrink)

This introduction includes a short summary discussion of all the articles included in the volume. In addition to reprints of Rorty's essays about pragmatism and feminism, the volume includes essays by John C. Adams, Linda Martín Alcoff, Sharyn Clough, Nancy Fraser, Sabina Lovibond, Alessandra Tanesini, Georgia Warnke, and Steven Yarbrough.

In the midst of the 2020 pandemic produced by an invisible virus, words bring the world near. Words come in from a threatening outside, even as their use turns those who are inside outward. Speech practices reconfigure work and non-work, while politics, like language, turns inside-out.

Para aclarar la importancia que los escritos antimaniqueos tienen en la evolución del pensamiento de Agustín sobre la dinámica de la conversión, el artículo destaca tres aspectos: El papel que Agustín le confiere a la razón y a la imaginación en el movimiento del intelecto de y hacia la verdad. La función que la voluntad juega en la conversión de la mente y las implicaciones de la caída para el correcto funcionamiento de la voluntad. El influjo de la comprensión de (...) Agustín de la dinámica de la conversión en relación con "Ad Simplicianum" y las "Confessiones". (shrink)

The Hebrew Bible provides a rich language and manifold images of describing the beginning of life. It does not determine the status of the embryo in a technical way, but reflects general human experiences with the indeterminacy of prenatal life. Its attitude towards the beginning of life is always multi-dimensional, combining physical, personal, social and transcendental perspectives. The tension between theological explanations and human responsibility is reflected both in the Hebrew Bible and in modern bioethical discussions. Although texts like 1 (...) Sam 1-2 and Ps 139,13-16 were written in a completely different context, their way of speaking about this tension shows parallels with current themes. (shrink)