This article takes a fresh look at the place of transcendence in feminist theology. The author argues that it is this concept that allows us to imagine the impossible and therefore has a central part to play. The article engages with process thought and so argues that God, which is part of the process is nevertheless more than the sum of the parts. Deity, it is argued, is the web in which all things take place.

Growing up in the shadow of the women's movement dramatically influences how young women think about their life course transitions. Although prior research has examined the objective markers of adulthood, we know little about how young women themselves perceive these markers. This article examines the subjective meanings of the transition to adulthood among 42 young women who were part of the Youth Development Study. While interviewees saw becoming a parent and becoming financially independent as reflecting an adult (...) orientation, completing schooling was tied to class-differentiated views of growing up. In addition, respondents did not see beginning full-time work and getting married as associated with growing up. Three key themes emerged as young women discussed their lives: independence/self-reliance, self-development, and uncertainty. These themes suggest that young women are partially “living feminism” as they make the transition to adulthood. (shrink)

Michèle Le Doeuff's "Primal Scene": Prohibition and Confidence in the Education of a Woman My essay begins with Michèle Le Doeuff's singular account of the "primal scene" in her own education as a woman, illustrating a universally significant point about the way in which education can differ for men and women: gender difference both shapes and is shaped by the imaginary of a culture as manifest in how texts matter for Le Doeuff. Her primal scene is the first moment she (...) remembers when, while aspiring to think for herself, a prohibition is placed in her reading of literature. Her philosophyteacher—at a boys' school—told the young Michèle that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was "too difficult" for her to read. In recalling this scene, the older Michèle—now, a woman philosopher—directs her readers to this text by Kant, in order to demonstrate how knowledge has been constrained by the narrative and imagery in the text of a philosopher; similarly, in the texts of others. She finds the central imagery of Kant's text for setting the limits to human knowledge in his account of "the island of understanding," or "land of truth," surrounded by "a stormy sea" of uncertainty; the latter image also retains a seductive appeal, threatening to destroy the confidence of any knower who ventures out beyond the well-marked out island. Moreover, women have often been associated with the dangers at sea beyond the safety of the island, where falsehood and worse reign. I propose that "text matters" here not only for gender issues, but for the postcolonial theory which Le Doeuff's reading of island imagery enhances in western literature and culture. The suggestion is that women in the history of ideas have been more susceptible than men to prohibitions : women's negative education is against going beyond certain boundaries which have been fixed by a generally colonialist culture on the grounds of gender-hierarchies. I stress the significance of confidence in the production of knowledge. A lack or an inhibition of confidence in one's own ability to think critically risks the damaging exclusions of, for example, colonialism and sexism. My aim is to unearth the political biases evident in textual imagery, while also pointing to new epistemic locations, with island-and-sea imagery that transgresses patriarchal prohibition, liberating subjects for confident reading and writing of texts today. (shrink)

In contrast to popular presumptions and prior research on women ofthe “postfeminist” generation, this study found anappreciation for recent historicalchanges in women’s opportunities, and an awareness of persisting inequalities and discrimination. The findings reveal support for feminist goals, coupled with ambiguity about the concept offeminism. Although some of the women could be categorized alonga continuum of feminist identification, half were “fence-sitters” or were unable to articulate a position. There were variations in perspectives amongthose with different life experiences, as well as (...) by racial and class background. (shrink)

HARDIN PK. Nursing Inquiry 2003; 10: 209–217 Shape-shifting discourses of anorexia nervosa: reconstituting psychopathologyThis article explores how the circuitous relationship between individuals, the media, and discursive systems replicate and reinforce the act of self-starvation in young women. Using a feminist poststructuralist methodology, the focus of this article is on how discourses and institutional practices operate to position young women who take up the subject position of wanting to be diagnosed as anorexic. Utilizing data from online accounts and individual (...) interviews, I attend to the ways in which young women are institutionally positioned as ‘anorexics’ and the effects that those positions have on their behaviors, in addition to reinforcing institutional practices that construct anorexia nervosa. Questions addressed through this inquiry are: How do institutional practices create and continue to constitute ‘anorexia nervosa’? How do discourses operate to position young women such that they are either included and/or excluded into the category of ‘anorexia nervosa’? What are the effects and consequences that emanate from these positionings? (shrink)

This book explores images of schoolteachers in America from the beginning of the 20th century to the present, using a wide range of approaches to scholarship and writing. It is intended for both experienced and aspiring teachers to use as a springboard for discussion and reflection about the teaching profession and for contemplating these questions: _ What does it mean to be a teacher? What has influenced and sustained our beliefs about teachers? New in the second edition_ * The focus (...) is shifted to the teaching profession as the 21st century unfolds. * The volume continues to explore teacher images through various genres--oral history, narrative, literature, and popular culture. In the second edition, the authors place more emphasis on the social-political context that has shaped teachers' daily experiences and the teaching profession itself. In the study of teacher images and schooling, the essays draw from feminist research methods and the critical tradition in educational inquiry to probe issues of power and authority, race, social class, and gender. * The emphasis is on the multidimensionality of teacher images rather than normative characterizations. * Six totally new chapters have been written for this new edition: an "invented interview" spanning 100 years of school teaching; portraits of progressive activist teachers; an exploration of teachers in fiction for young adults; a retrospective of the satirical cartoon show, _The Simpsons_; a study of crusading and caring teachers in films; and an overview of progressive classroom practices in "the new millennium." Seven chapters have been thoroughly revised to reflect current scholarship and the authors' evolving knowledge and interests. (shrink)

Neither legalistic gender-neutral categories nor prior feminist theories adequately capture all of the gender dynamics of child sexual abuse. Surveys of 923 young adults, 88 of whom reported sexual contact with adults before they were 16, complemented by intensive follow-up interviews with 18 reporting contact, reveal that gendered constructions of sexuality and dominance make the experience of abuse significantly different for boys and girls. Girls nearly always had contact with men and tended to experience it as harmful abuse. Boys (...) were more likely to have contact with women than with men; they generally interpreted contact with women as consensual, but their contact with men as abusive. Extensions of feminist gender analysis are required to explain these patterns. (shrink)

Multisensory integration (MSI) allows us to link sensory cues from multiple sources and plays a crucial role in speech development. However, it is not clear whether humans have an innate ability or whether repeated sensory input while the brain is maturing leads to efficient integration of sensory information in speech. We investigated the integration of auditory and somatosensory information in speech processing in a bimodal perceptual task in 15 young adults (age 19–30) and 14 children (age 5–6). The participants (...) were asked to identify if the perceived target was the sound /e/ or /ø/. Half of the stimuli were presented under a unimodal condition with only auditory input. The other stimuli were presented under a bimodal condition with both auditory input and somatosensory input consisting of facial skin stretches provided by a robotic device, which mimics the articulation of the vowel /e/. The results indicate that the effect of somatosensory information on sound categorization was larger in adults than in children. This suggests that integration of auditory and somatosensory information evolves throughout the course of development. (shrink)

Este artículo reflexiona acerca de las especificidades de la constitución de los monumentos conmemorativos en vínculo con la historia reciente. Para ello, la mirada se centrará en la noción de contramonumentos, entendiendo a estos últimos como aquellas producciones que, inicialmente de la mano de un grupo de artistas alemanes, desafían las premisas del monumento tradicional. En base a esto, se expone, en primera instancia el desarrollo histórico del monumento, destacando determinados sucesos que se consideran significativos dentro de la extensa cronología (...) en la que éste se inscribe; en un segundo momento, se recuperan una serie de reflexiones y debates que problematizan y cuestionan la efectividad de estos objetos culturales en relación a la evocación del pasado; y finalmente, se presentan y analizan un conjunto de producciones artísticas que se enmarcan dentro de lo que se reconoce como contramonumentos. En este sentido, se considera que la revisión de los aspectos formales, conceptuales y funcionales a partir de las cuales James E. Young definió en la década de los noventa a los contramonumentos, ilumina y habilita nuevas reflexiones sobre las diversas intervenciones, acciones de resistencia y producciones artísticas que se llevan a cabo en la actualidad, muchas de las cuales pueden ser pensadas como contramonumentos. (shrink)

The Weather Prediction Task was originally designed to assess probabilistic classification learning. Participants were believed to gradually acquire implicit knowledge about cue–outcome association probabilities and solve the task using a multicue strategy based on the combination of all cue–outcome probabilities. However, the cognitive processes engaged in the resolution of this task have not been firmly established, and despite conflicting results, the WPT is still commonly used to assess striatal or procedural learning capacities in various populations. Here, we tested young (...) adults on a modified version of the WPT and performed novel analyses to decipher the learning strategies and cognitive processes that may support above chance performance. The majority of participants used a hierarchical strategy by assigning different weights to the different cues according to their level of predictability. They primarily based their responses on the presence or absence of highly predictive cues and considered less predictive cues secondarily. However, the influence of the less predictive cues was inconsistent with the use of a multicue strategy, since they did not affect choices when both highly predictive cues associated with opposite outcomes were present simultaneously. Our findings indicate that overall performance is inadequate to draw conclusions about the cognitive processes assessed by the WPT. Instead, detailed analyses of performance for the different patterns of cue–outcome associations are essential to determine the learning strategies used by participants to solve the task. (shrink)

In Western countries, a social trend toward delaying childbearing has been observed in women of reproductive age for the last two decades. This delay is due to different factors related to lifestyle, such as the development of a professional career or the absence of the right partner. As a consequence, women who defer childbearing may find themselves affected by age-related infertility when they decide to conceive. Fertility preservation techniques are, therefore, proposed as a solution for these women. Among all possible (...) solutions, social freezing is an alternative strongly discussed from a scientific, social and ethical point of view.A survey among 930 female students at the University of Padova (Italy) investigated their knowledge and attitudes on social egg freezing and their potential intentions regarding this procedure. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the level of awareness of age-related infertility in Italian young women and their attitudes regarding acceptable indications for elective oocyte freezing, their potential personal use, the circumstances in which they would then decide to use cryopreserved eggs, and their attitudes towards cost coverage and oocyte donation.Data collected in this study revealed some important points about young women and their knowledge about social oocyte freezing in Italy as compared to other European countries and the United States.Overall, 34.3% of the students reported having heard about the possibility of oocyte cryopreservation for non-medical reasons and being aware of the meaning of this procedure; only 19.5% were in favour of social egg freezing and 48.4% thought that the cost for this procedure should be borne entirely by the woman herself. Regarding egg donation, the majority of students (64.9%) would not accept donating their eggs to a known woman or couple and 42.5% would instead accept donating to a biobank.Our study shows that young Italian women are significantly less aware of age-related decline in fertility and the possibility of using social egg freezing compared to their similarly situated counterparts in other Western countries. (shrink)

Down syndrome (DS), the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, results from the partial or complete triplication of chromosome 21. Individuals with DS are impaired at using a high-resolution, allocentric spatial representation to learn and remember discrete locations in a controlled environment. Here, we assessed the capacity of individuals with DS to perform low-resolution spatial learning, depending on two competing memory systems: (1) the place learning system, which depends on the hippocampus and creates flexible relational representations of the environment; (...) and (2) the response learning system, which depends on the striatum and creates fixed stimulus-response representations of behavioral actions. Individuals with DS exhibited a preservation of the low-resolution spatial learning capacities subserved by these two systems. In place learning, although the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of typically-developing (TD) mental age-matched children and TD young adults, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD children. In response learning, the average performance of individuals with DS was lower than that of TD adults, but it did not differ from that of TD children. Moreover, the number of individuals with DS performing above chance level did not differ from TD adults, and was higher than that of TD children. In sum, whereas low-resolution place learning appears relatively preserved in individuals with DS, response learning appears facilitated. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the neural pathways supporting low-resolution place learning and response learning are relatively preserved in DS. (shrink)

As a young philosopher, a third-generation atheist and already a feminist, Michèle Le Doeuff read the Bible on her own, without anybody’s guidance and on the basis of an assumed intellectual equality between the texts and herself. Later on, her friendship with Pamela Sue Anderson also developed thanks to their firm belief that a member of a given faith and an atheist can tolerate and indeed respect each other to the full through a common involvement in feminist philosophy. (...) All this defines a standpoint from which a host of questions can be raised and many topics transformed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Lumps and Bumps”Katherine Arens (bio)“Lumps and Bumps” offers a fresh look at nosological classifications in terms of their genesis in eighteenth-century philosophy by acknowledging the proximity of philosophy to the sciences of the mind in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in Germany. Today, strict borders are drawn between these fields by mainstream practitioners, but work like Radden’s makes a strong case for acknowledging not only multiculturalism, (...) but also the historicity of science. As such, it is exemplary interdisciplinary work tracing a set of concepts (here, a taxonomy of mental illness) back to its sources. Yet Radden tacitly raises other questions significant for the interrelationships between psychology/psychiatry and philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.First, Radden quite rightly points to the fact that taxonomies defining mental illness will differ across cultures (e.g., that Scottish and German “faculty psychologies” differed). Yet her question can be inverted to ask a historical question: how can taxonomies of mental illness be used to interrogate the very construct of “the European Enlightenment” itself (in a sense, offering a variant on Michel Foucault’s Birth of a Clinic). This question is significant, since the “Enlightenment” has an internationalist contour in the history of philosophy that it may well not have had in medicine.In what way, for example, can Hume and Locke be considered more direct references for Kant than his philosophical nemesis, Johann Gottfried Herder, or physiologists La Mettrie (French) and Albrecht von Haller (Swiss)? Today, these two questions seem to lie on opposite sides of acknowledged disciplinary boundaries, across discourses of the various sciences, and they are not generally asked by intellectual historians, since they lie in different cultural traditions. Yet the German Idealist tradition that came out of the Enlightenment in the generation between Wolf and Kant had different boundaries between philosophy and the natural sciences than did its English equivalent. In this sense, then, Radden has made an argument that could be used to indicate how far the British empiricists actually influenced Kant, as an index of how science crosses both disciplinary and national boundaries.Second, Radden’s work raises a methodological issue for interdisciplinary work on the emergence of psychology: how one can trace the rapid mutation of critical terminology within the evolution of a single discipline across time. Even if some differentiation between affect and cognition was in place from the time of Kant all the way through to the DSM, for instance, the historical and cultural behavioral phenomena to which that distinction refers need to be specified in each context in which they occur, in different [End Page 15] times and places. Psychology between Kant and Kraepelin exemplifies this “interdisciplinarity” of an evolving field. Was psychology to be institutionalized as part of philosophy departments, or of physiology, or of education? The research in these three fields was carried out in almost identical terms in the early nineteenth century, but what that research means needs to be further historicized.For example, “reason” and “passion” occur as reference concepts in Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, just as they do in Rousseau’s Nouvelle Heloise and Confessions, and in Richardson’s Pamela. Yet the behaviors that are identified as “passionate” differ across cultures, and so need to be defined today in ways that acknowledge chains of influence as they existed at that time, not as reconstructed for other purposes.The third issue raised by Radden’s study and needing further study is the question of power politics in science. Each use of terms has its own strategic importance, and every act of classification is potentially political. When classification schema are exported, imported, rejected, or upheld, the practitioner/professional not only makes a scientific statement, but a social one as well, by adhering to a set of professional organizations, institutions, and other power configurations in which the schema appear. In the case of Kant’s taxonomy of mind, one might ask what the significance was when he added “will” to the reason/passion dichotomy that pervaded his sources. What has he gained or lost by using these terms in the context of faculty psychology?Similarly, what is the cultural significance of that third... (shrink)

The problems and the keys to their solutions -- Ontology of artworks -- Copyright and its limits -- Token appropriation -- Pattern appropriation -- Appropriation of artistic elements.

The strategy I adopt in this paper is as follows. First I seek to show that the authors’ formulation of the notion of "determinism" is defective because it elides some important distinctions. Second, I go on to argue that these defects vitiate some of the contentions made in the paper and alert us to the inadequacy of the self-referential argument developed in it.

Advocacy is an important concept in nursing practice; it is frequently used to describe th nurse-client relationship. The term advocacy, however, is subject to ambiguity of interpretation. Such ambiguity was evidenced recently in criticisms levelled at the nursing profession by hospital ethicist Ellen Bernal. She reproached nursing for using 'patient rights advocate' as a viable role for nurses. We maintain that, for nursing, patient advocacy may encompass, but is not limited to, patient rights advocacy. Patient advocacy is not merely the (...) defence of infringements of patient rights. Advocacy for nursing stems from a philosophy of nursing in which nursing practice is the support of an individual to promote his or her own well-being, as understood by that individual. It is an ethic of practice. La défense des malades joue un grand rôle dans la pratique des infirmiers/ères. Le terme est souvent utilisé pour définir les rapports entre malades et soignants. Le mot 'defénse' pourtant, peut être mal compris. Une ambiguïté était évidente récemment dans la critique de la profession infirmière faite par la philosophe éthique Ellen Bernal. Elle reproche à la profession d'utiliser le terme 'avocat des droits des malades' pour désigner le rôle primordial des infirmiers/ères. Nous croyons que pour les soignants, la défense des malades peut comprendre le rôle 'd'avocat des droits des malades' mais elle ne s'y borne pas. La défense n'est pas limitée à la défense des infractions des droits des malades. La défense dans la profession infirmière est basée sur une philosophie où la pratique infirmière est le soutien des malades dans leur quête de promouvoir leur propre bien-être. Die Fürsprache spielt eine wichtige Rolle in der Krankenpflege. Sie wird oft als kennzeichnend für die Beziehung zwischen Patient und Pflegepersonal beschrieben. Der Ausdruck 'Fürsprache' kann aber auch mehrdeutig interpretiert werden. Das wurde letzthin in der Kritik der Ethikerin Ellen Bernal an der Krankenpflege sichtbar. Sie machte den Pflegenden den Vorwurf, dass sie sich die Rolle des 'Rechts-Advokat des Patienten' aneignen. Wir sind der Meinung, dass es die Aufgabe des Pflegepersonals ist, auch die Rechte der Patienten zu vertreten, aber dass das nur ein Teil der Fürsprache ist. Sie ist nicht nur Verteidignung von verletzten Patientenrechten. Die Fürsprache in der Krankenpflege stammt von einer Philosophie, deren Ausübung die Unterstützung der Patienten für ihr Wohlergehen zum Ziel hat, so wie die Patienten selbst ihr Wohlergehen verstehen. Sie ist eine Ethik der Tat. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface That an overtly white-nationalist misogynist demagogue was voted into power in the United States is cause for alarm and despair. As the election results sink in and analyses take shape, we at Feminist Studies mark this moment via poetry, a tradition of feminist expression that we have long nurtured. We include in this issue a special section on poems responding to the election. Raw by necessity, they allow (...) for a collective processing of feelings experienced in this moment, even as we prepare for the courage and acuity needed in days ahead. The scholarly works in this issue offer reflections on the travels of the term gender: in French Canadian feminist circles; the misreadings of gender and sexuality in histories of post-WWII New York City; and the gains and gaps in activism against gender-based violence and inequality. Geneviève Pagé recounts how the term gender was taken up in French Canadian scholarship, while Alix Genter offers a visual history of what butchness meant in 1950s and 1960s New York City. Julie R. Enszer tracks the representation of women writers through literary grants offered by the National Endowment for the Arts and in Norton anthologies, making the case that gender parity remains an elusive goal. Elizabeth Jean Hornbeck narrates the 1980 horror film The Shining as a commentary on violence against women and child abuse that uses the Gothic form to salutary effect. Nikki Lane reviews recent scholarship in black queer ethnography, and Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor introduces us to the feminist eco-art of Pamela Longobardi. Our featured poets, apart from our special section, are Hannah Baker Saltmarsh and Karen An-hwei Lee. Our closing forum on trigger warnings narrates the innovative practices that Alexis Lothian and Ramzi Fawaz propose in response to a contentious pedagogical debate. 560Preface Geneviève Pagé describes the history of the journey of the term gender in feminist circles in Montreal, using this case to comment on the dilemmas that arise from Anglocentrism in feminism. Pagé argues that in many ways, the term gender was not well suited to the context she highlights: Quebec feminists already possessed an intellectual infrastructure for referencing the meanings of the term gender through alternative phrasing, such as rapport sociaux de sexe. Furthermore, the grammatical concept of genre was “a concept central to the French language, but only peripheral in the English language,” and therefore, its use in French carried a potential “naturalizing” connotation. Nonetheless, given the dominance of English in feminist theory, Pagé concludes that “the polysemic nature of gender” allowed “for a fluid and multiple account of the local and global processes at work in the construction of women and men” in this context. Alix Genter gives us a nuanced understanding of butch genders and butch-femme aesthetics. Rather than relying on a stereotypical version of the 1950s queerly legible butch in masculine clothes, Genter argues that butchness itself was visually nuanced and coded in different ways than expected. Referencing a rich archive of 1950s-era photographs, Genter demonstrates that butch-identified women “conveyed their identities through alternate means that included clandestine codes and plays on women’s fashions.” This approach to butch aesthetics and lesbian self-representation opens up the common notion of a strict butch-femme contrast and introduces the concept of conscious mutual survival between the two lesbian identities. The appreciation of nuance continues in Nikki Lane’s review essay of reflexive ethnographic research about black queer communities. Lane’s review of recent work by Jafari S. Allen, Marlon Bailey, Mignon Moore, and Mireille Miller-Young highlights the attention these authors give to the complex politics of sexuality in everyday experiences of black communities. With an emphasis on the illuminating potential of ethnography and qualitative methodologies, Lane discusses how each text adds to our understanding of processes of “racialization, gendering, and sexualization.” Lane concludes that black queer and feminist ethnographic methods help accrue an embodied knowledge—the “flesh”—of black queer experience. Preface 561 The art featured in this issue is by Pamela Longobardi, who uses found-plastic objects to create painting, sculptures, installations, assemblages, photographs, and community-art projects. As an artist with training in biology, Longobardi focuses on the... (shrink)

O presente artigo, resultado de pesquisa bibliográfica, tem como finalidade demonstrar o cinema como choque da realidade e como uma ferramenta filosófica, e não apenas como entretenimento, possibilitando a contribuição não linguística para o pensamento em detrimento à realidade. Por conseguinte, analisando as formas de poderes no âmbito social e escolar em uma relação de microfísica do poder difundida no processo educacional. Além de ressaltar a ambiguidade do papel da educação, onde a mesma pode ser ao mesmo tempo libertadora e (...) propagadora de ideologias, no olhar acrítico sobre sua realidade social e de alienação durante o processo de formação do sujeito. (shrink)

Employing Porter and Kramer’s corporate social responsibility framework, we explored the strategic CSR programs of two Korean and two Japanese electronics multinational enterprises in Indonesia. We observed that the sample MNEs engage in strategic CSR either through investment in competitive context or the transformation of value chain activities. In addition, these firms strongly favor strategic CSR over responsive CSR, not just because of the economic benefits offered by the former, but also its advantages in managing the programs and communicating with (...) stakeholders. Furthermore, they have developed varied organizational methods and tend to manage their key CSR programs centrally to effectively link them to the competitive strategy. Lastly, the results of our analysis suggest that Korean MNEs have customized their strategic CSR programs for emerging countries more actively than Japanese MNEs. In sum, our analysis elucidates several important features of strategic CSR employed by the MNEs in emerging countries. (shrink)

Phenomenally, we can distinguish between ownership of thought (introspective awareness) and authorship of thought (an awareness of the activity of thinking), a distinction prompted by the phenomenon of thought insertion. Does this require the independence of ownership and authorship at the structural level? By employing a Kantian approach to the question of ownership of thought, I argue that a thought being my thought is necessarily the outcome of the interdependence of these two component parts (ownership and authorship). In addition, whilst (...) still employing a Kantian approach, I speculate over possible mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of thought insertion. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that within the Japanese social context, the act of suicide is a positive moral act because the values underpinning it are directly related to a socially pervasive moral belief that any act of self-sacrifice is a worthy pursuit. The philosophical basis for this view of the self and its relation to society goes back to the writings of Confucius who advocated a life of propriety in which being dutiful, obedient, and loyal to one's group takes (...) precedence over the desires of the individual selves that make up the group. I argue that this philosophical perspective poses formidable challenges to Japanese psychiatry (which accepts a contrary western perspective) because, as western psychiatry is based on the concept of autonomous individuality, the Japanese conceive of the self as socially embedded. Because suicide in Japan is viewed as a potentially honorable, virtuous, and even beautiful act of self-sacrifice expressing one's duty to one's group, the western perspective is quite foreign to the Japanese self-conceptual framework. Therefore, since Japanese psychiatry and law have embraced the western medical tradition of viewing suicide as a non-rational response to mental illness, which runs counter to the cultural view that suicide is a moral (and rational) act, I argue that western explanations of suicide present significant cross-cultural problems for Japanese psychiatry. (shrink)

This book examines the significance of balance between the opposites in order to understand God and the world. The author argues that opposites-the subject and object, mind and nature, good and evil, truth and falsehood-are not separated from each other but interdependent in the relational paradigm.