Digital storytelling has become a popular method for curating community, organisational, and individual narratives. Since its beginnings over 20 years ago, projects have sprung up across the globe, where authentic voice is found in the narration of lived experiences. Contributing to a Collective Intelligence for the Common Good, the authors of this paper ask how shared stories can bring impetus to community groups to help identify what they seek to change, and how digital storytelling can be effectively implemented in community (...) partnership projects to enable authentic voices to be carried to other stakeholders in society. The Community Digital Storytelling method is introduced as a means for addressing community-of-place issues. There are five stages to this method: preparation, story telling, story digitisation, digital story sense-making, and digital story sharing. Additionally, a Storytelling Cycle of Trust framework is proposed. We identify four trust dimensions as being imperative foundations in implementing community digital media interventions for the common good: legitimacy, authenticity, synergy, and commons. This framework is concerned with increasing the impact that everyday stories can have on society; it is an engine driving prolonged storytelling. From this perspective, we consider the ability to scale up the scope and benefit of stories in civic contexts. To illustrate this framework, we use experiences from the CDST workshop in northern Britain and compare this with a social innovation project in the southern Netherlands. (shrink)

This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability spaces as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism is made up for by its strength. In particular, my semantics accounts for the distinctive behavior of nested epistemic modals, indicative conditionals embedded under probability operators, and instances of constructive dilemma (...) containing epistemic vocabulary. (shrink)

This paper discusses three potential varieties of update: updates to the common ground, structuring updates, and updates that introduce discourse referents. These different types of update are used to model different aspects of natural language phenomena. Not-at-issue information directly updates the common ground. The illocutionary mood of a sentence structures the context. Other updates introduce discourse referents of various types, including propositional discourse referents for at-issue information. Distinguishing these types of update allows a unified treatment of a broad range of (...) phenomena, including the grammatical evidentials found in Cheyenne (Algonquian) as well as English evidential parentheticals, appositives, and mood marking. An update semantics that can formalize all of these varieties of update is given, integrating the different kinds of semantic contributions into a single representation of meaning. (shrink)

Many languages grammatically mark evidentiality, i.e., the source of information. In assertions, evidentials indicate the source of information of the speaker while in questions they indicate the expected source of information of the addressee. This dissertation examines the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality and illocutionary mood, set within formal theories of meaning and discourse. The empirical focus is the evidential system of Cheyenne (Algonquian: Montana), which is analyzed based on several years of fieldwork by the author.

Despite multiple axes of variation in defining wellbeing, the paper argues for the dominance of a ‘components approach’ in current research and practice. This approach builds on a well-established tradition within the social sciences of attending to categories whether for their identification, their value or their meanings and political resonance. The paper critiques the components approach and explores how to move beyond it towards conceptually integrating the various categories and dimensions through a relational and situated account of wellbeing. Drawing on (...) more fluid social sciences, wellbeing is framed as an effect, dependent on the mobilisation of resources from everyday encounters with complex assemblages of people, things and places. Through such a framing, wellbeing can be conceived of as stable and amenable to change, as individual and collective and as subjective and objective. Policy interventions then need to attend to the relationalities of particular social and spatial contexts. (shrink)

As befits an emerging field of enquiry, there is on-going discussion about the scope, role and future of the medical humanities. One relatively recent contribution to this debate proposes a differentiation of the field into two distinct terrains, ‘medical humanities’ and ‘health humanities,’ and calls for a supersession of the former by the latter. In this paper, we revisit the conceptual underpinnings for a distinction between ‘the medical’ and ‘health’ by looking at the history of an analogous debate between ‘medical (...) geography’ and ‘the geographies of health’ that has, over the last few years, witnessed a re-blurring of the distinction. Highlighting the value of this debate within the social sciences for the future development of the medical humanities, we call for scholars to take seriously the challenges of critical and cultural theory, community-based arts and health, and the counter-cultural creative practices and strategies of activist movements in order to meet the new research challenges and fulfill the radical potential of a critical medical humanities. (shrink)

According to some authors, emotions can be unconscious when they are unfelt or unnoticed. According to others, emotions are always conscious because they always have a phenomenology. The aim of this paper is to resolve the ongoing debate about the possibility for emotions to be unfelt. To do so, I focus on the notion of “unconscious emotions”. While this notion appears paradoxical, by way of a distinction between two meanings of emotional consciousness I show that it is not so. These (...) meanings are both compatible with the leading views of consciousness and they do not require one to distinguish different senses of “emotions” or “consciousness”. This distinction is helpful to define how emotions can be unconscious. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the supposition of divine omnipotence entails a contradiction: omnipotence both must and must not be intrinsic to God. Hence, traditional theism must be rejected. To begin, I separate out some theoretical distinctions needed to inform the discussion. I then advance two different arguments for the conclusion that omnipotence must be intrinsic to God; these utilise the notions of essence and aseity. Next, I argue that some necessary conditions on being omnipotent are extrinsic, and that (...) this means omnipotence cannot be intrinsic to God. I consider three different ways of resolving this conflict, but contend that each is unsuccessful. Before concluding, I explain why the type of strategy used to resolve the traditional paradoxes of omnipotence cannot be successfully employed against the paradox presented here. (shrink)

This article discusses the nature of interprofessional ethics and some of the ethical issues and challenges that arise when practitioners from different professions work closely together in the fields of health and social care. The article draws on materials from a conference on this theme, covering issues of confidentiality and information sharing in practice and research with vulnerable people; challenges for teaching and learning about ethics in interprofessional settings; the potential of virtue ethics and an ethic of care for understanding (...) and handling ethical issues in interprofessional practice; and the extent to which interprofessional working may be about surveillance and control. It concludes that the need to understand and handle ethical issues in interprofessional working is contributing to the revitalisation of professional ethics as a dynamic field of study. (shrink)

Sarah Arnaud C’est par une affirmation provocatrice que Hacking propose un ratio pour représenter le rapport entre science et militantisme dans le façonnement des notions sur l’autisme. Selon lui, la définition et la compréhension actuelles de l’autisme proviennent à 99 % de personnes « personnellement connectées à une personne autiste » plutôt que de la science. Kendler rejette un tel point de vue en suggérant au contraire que notre compréhension de l’autisme est le résultat d’un travail scientifique approfondi, notamment (...) par la recherche en génétique. Je considère que leur désaccord se fonde sur une fausse dichotomie selon laquelle seule la recherche scientifique est à même d’envisager l’autisme de manière empirique, alors que le discours des « p-c-a » construirait au contraire une conception socioculturelle de l’autisme. J’envisage les problèmes éthiques inhérents à un tel ratio et suggère que la perspective des personnes autistes elles-mêmes représente une étape nécessaire à l’atteinte d’une validité scientifique. (shrink)

This paper suggests that autistic people relate to themselves via a third-person perspective, an objective and explicit mode of access, while neurotypical people tend to access the different dimensions of their self through a first-person perspective. This approach sheds light on autistic traits involving interactions with others, usage of narratives, sensitivity and interoception, and emotional consciousness. Autistic people seem to access these dimensions through comparatively indirect and effortful processes, while neurotypical development enables a more intuitive sense of self.

Research focused on the prodromal period prior to the onset of psychosis is essential for the further development of strategies for early detection, early intervention, and disease pre-emption. Such efforts necessarily require the enrollment of individuals who are at risk of psychosis but have not yet developed a psychotic illness into research and treatment protocols. This work is becoming increasingly internationalized, which warrants special consideration of cultural differences in conceptualization of mental illness and international differences in health care practices and (...) rights regarding research participation. The process of identifying and requesting informed consent from individuals at elevated risk for psychosis requires thoughtful communication about illness risk and often involves the participation of family members. Empirical studies of risk reasoning and decisional capacity in young people and individuals with psychosis suggest that most individuals who are at-risk for psychosis can adequately provide informed consent; however ongoing improvements to tools and procedures are important to ensure that this work proceeds with maximal consideration of relevant ethical issues. This review provides a discussion of these issues in the context of international research efforts. (shrink)

Discussion of the role which religious experience can play in warranting theistic belief has received a great deal of attention within contemporary philosophy of religion. By contrast, the relationship between experience and atheistic belief has received relatively little focus. Our aim in this paper is to begin to remedy that neglect. In particular, we focus on the hitherto under-discussed question of whether experiences of God’s absence can provide positive epistemic status for a belief in God’s nonexistence. We argue that there (...) is good reason to accept an epistemic parity between experiences of God’s presence and experiences of God’s absence. (shrink)

Attributor contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism both suggest ways in which our concept of knowledge depends on a context. Both offer approaches that incorporate traditionally non-epistemic elements into our standards for knowledge. But neither can account for the fact that the social role of a subject affects the standards that the subject must meet in order to warrant a knowledge attribution. I illustrate the dependence of the standards for knowledge on the social roles of the knower with three types of examplesand (...) show why neither attributor contextualism nor subject-sensitive invariantism can explain them. I then suggest that subject-sensitive invariantism should be supplemented with insights from virtue epistemology so that it can explain the dependence of the standards of knowledge on social roles. This supplementation of subject-sensitive invariantism helps to solve a persistent problem facing that theory: the case of knowledge attributions made by those in high-stakes contexts about subjects in low-stakes contexts. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to review critically Julian Savulescu's principle of 'Procreative Beneficence,' which holds that prospective parents are morally obligated to select, of the possible children they could have, those with the greatest chance of leading the best life. According to this principle, prospective parents are obliged to use the technique of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select for the 'best' embryos, a decision that ought to be made based on the presence or absence of both disease (...) traits and non-disease traits such as intelligence. While several articles have been written in response to Savulescu's principle, none has systematically explored its philosophical underpinnings to demonstrate where it breaks down. In this paper I argue that the examples that Savulescu employs to support his theory in fact fail to justify it. He presents these examples as analogous to PGD, when in fact they differ from it in subtle but morally relevant ways. Specifically, Savulescu fails to acknowledge the fact that his examples evoke deontological and virtue ethics concerns that are absent in the context of PGD. These differences turn out to be crucial, so that, in the end, the analogies bear little support for his theory. Finally, I lay out the implications of this analysis for reproductive ethics. (shrink)

On September 22, 1998, California Governor Pete Wilson signed Senate Bill 1785 into law, dramatically affecting the entire California animal sheltering community. Dubbed the "Hayden law" by the animal protection community after the bill's sponsor, it represents the state of California's attempt to legislate a solution to both the companion animal overpopulation problem and the friction between the agencies trying to end it. The persistence of the bill's primary supporters, a Los Angeles veterinarian and a UCLA law school professor and (...) the overall lack of opposition to it helped SB 1785 sail through the California legislature. Because of the scope of the bill and the immense cost of implementation, its passage shocked many in the sheltering community. This case study highlights the consequences of legislation that was crafted based on worse case scenarios and over which there was little collaborative effort. It concludes with suggestions that might be useful to other states contemplating similar such legislation. (shrink)

This article examines how migration impacts power dynamics and gender norms for women left behind living in rural Southern Punjab, Pakistan, a site where patriarchal customs and religion are interwoven to confine women’s mobility and agency. Based on qualitative interviews and focus groups with women left behind from 2015 through 2018, this article explores how local rural-to-urban male migration patterns impact the decision-making powers of women who are left behind and must make sense of the family structure and gender dynamics (...) in their homes after their husbands’ exit. This study finds that in the absence of her migrant husband, a woman left behind is still subject to patriarchal norms and surveillance by the remaining in-laws, including other women. Citing specific examples from the field, I explain why women left behind remain close to the very families that confine and monitor their movement, and why, in some cases, women left behind turn a blind eye toward their husband’s second or third marriage. Through an examination of behind-the-scenes negotiations that women left behind make, I argue that women maintain for themselves at surface level the gendered expectations that patriarchy sets for them, but given the opportunity, they can negotiate and bargain their positionality in subtle ways without disrupting the status quo that could otherwise jeopardize their physical safety and social reputation. (shrink)

Simulations, in which healthcare professionals are observed in dialogue with role-played patients, are widely used for assessing professional skills. Medical education research suggests simulations should be as authentic as possible, but there remains a lack of linguistic research into how far such settings authentically reproduce talk. This article presents an analysis of a corpus of general practice simulations in the United Kingdom, comparing this to a dataset of real-life general practitioner consultations. Combining corpus linguistic and conversation analytic methodologies, key interactional (...) features of the simulations are identified, particularly those associated with successful/unsuccessful performance in terms of the examiner’s grading. The corpus analysis identifies various forms of the phrase ‘tell me more about’ to occur significantly more frequently in the simulations compared to real GP consultations, typically in the opening sequences and most frequently in successful cases. It falls to a conversation analysis of the data, examining this phrase within the interactional context of these opening sequences, to better understand the actions it performs. Successful candidates in the simulations are found to perform a consistent sequential pattern, often incorporating this phrase. Although simulated, these interactions have real professional consequences for those being assessed. Linguistic findings about what constitutes successful interaction or differences to real-life practice therefore have important implications for professional education and assessment. (shrink)

Since the mid-nineteenth century, women in Europe, North America and elsewhere have played an increasing role in the workforce. Women started pursuing jobs in factories, offices and businesses instead of being dependent on men for their livelihood. However, along with this significant improvement in the status of women, they still face obstacles, such as the gender pay gab and harassment in the workplace. Although both males and females experience harassment, the available literature clearly suggests that females are more likely to (...) be harassed. Much of the research concerning workplace harassment against women has been conducted in the West while little is known about this phenomenon in workplaces across the Arab and Muslim countries. In fact, gender relations and the nature of workplaces in Arab countries vary significantly from the Western workplace due to religious, social and cultural traditions. Muslim women live in the midst of patriarchal cultures where women’s honour is believed to be sacred. The ideology of women’s seclusion and subordination resulted in the restriction of their ability to participate in the labour force even where females are in urgent need of earned income. In this regard, harassment considers a crucial subject on various international agendas. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for instance, reinforces the implementation of legislation that protects women against gender discrimination. Islam in a similar manner respects women and acknowledges their major role within a society. Therefore, as women living in Muslim communities where issues related to sexuality are sensitive, and people are reluctant to discuss such questions in public, this paper aims to discuss women seclusion, the situation of Muslim women with regard to harassment in the workplace, how international human rights deals with harassment as well as the relation between the Islamic jurisprudence and the international human rights with regard harassment in the workplace. (shrink)

In this inspirational discourse, scholar Sarah Wider and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda celebrate the great spiritual and literary figures, East and West, who have inspired their own work as educators, poets, and peace builders, including both the men and the women of the American Renaissance. They reserve their highest praise, though, for the lesser-known influences, especially teachers and mothers, whose humble, compassionate actions provide the truest foundation for the realization of ever-greater peace. Ultimately, the book is a tribute to (...) the bonds that give life meaning. These bonds are the ones built between friends and family; those who teach and those we might learn from; with the great thinkers of the past who live on in books, poetry, and art; with nature; and most of all with the best version of ourselves. (shrink)

Academic women experience working in higher education differently to their male counterparts. This article argues that the unequal position of women academics is unethical, irrespective of whether one takes a consequentialist or deontological ethical position. By drawing on a range of international studies, the article explores the reasons for this inequity, suggesting that the ?cult of individual responsibility?, the positioning of women academics as ?other? and the impact of having a family are significant factors. Having identified the reasons why university (...) women experience the system differently, the article then reflects on how the ethical university can move towards bringing about greater equity between male and female colleagues. (shrink)

Sarah A. Mattice develops a comparative intervention in contemporary metaphilosophy. Drawing on resources from hermeneutics, cognitive linguistics, aesthetics, and Chinese philosophy, she explores how philosophical language is deeply intertwined with the definition and practice of the discipline.

This synthetic review aims to unite a seemingly disjoint collection of studies over the past 3 decades around their shared examination of sexism in an often overlooked U.S. population, namely girls attending private Christian schools. This undertaking reveals substantial harms that I categorize as those of immediacy and potentiality, which are occurring behind the protective wall separating church and state. Contra the majority of philosophers of education and researchers in this area, these studies lead me to argue that the state (...) has the obligation and legal ability to intervene in this private domain. Notably, this study begins to flesh out a notion of educational harm that may be robust enough for state policy making and legal action in private schools. Based on a legalized understanding of sexist harm, I conclude with a detailed analysis of Constitutional provisions and court decisions relative to state intervention and freedom of religious practice. (shrink)

What role should the expertise of the autistic communities play in shaping the category of autism compared to the role played by science? This question led to a debate about the quantitative importance of science compared to first-person perspectives for the understanding of autism. I see this debate as lying on a false dichotomy between science and activism, according to which only scientific inquiry would reveal the empirical nature of autism, while the discourse of autistic communities would construct a socio-cultural (...) conception of autism. I consider the problems associated with such a dichotomy and show that first-person perspectives should be considered a necessary step in the scientific investigation of autism. (shrink)

“Ambivalence” is the key word in much of this book; “comic” [is the book’s] most obscure and I think absolutely without use value. I don’t know what B[urke] means by “comic,” as a matter of fact. I wonder if he does, and could define it briefly. Readers of Kenneth Burke are well aware of the importance of comedy and its associated cluster of concepts in his work: comic, comic frame, comic attitude, comic corrective. This cluster of terms figures prominently in (...) his 1937 book Attitudes Toward History, most notably in two key passages that scholars turn to time and again. In the first, from the “Poetic Categories” section of the book, Burke explains how different genres serve as guides for how to act in the... (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird anhand qualitativer Interviews mit Turnerinnen im Alter von fünfzehn bis sechszehn Jahren untersucht, wie sich sportive und digitale Praktiken gegenseitig bedingen und welche Rolle diese für die jugendliche Identitätsarbeit spielen. Die Turnerinnen bedienen sich informeller Turnpraktiken, um ihre Identität als Sportlerinnen aktiv zu konstruieren und digital darzustellen. Es stellte sich heraus, dass die Befragten unterschiedliche Selbstentwürfe in ihr turnerisches Identitätsprojekt integrieren, die sich sowohl an Leistung und sozialer Anerkennung als auch an Selbstentfaltung und sozialer Vergemeinschaftung (...) orientieren. Digitale Medien dienen ihnen dabei als wichtiges Werkzeug der Identitätsarbeit. (shrink)

I denne artikel undersøges kroniske patienters beslutninger om forsøgsdeltagelse og betydningen af deltagerinformation. På baggrund af et års feltarbejde på fire danske forskningsklinikker argumenterer jeg for, at de observerede patienter opererer efter andre logikker, når de tager beslutninger om at deltage i kliniske forsøg, end hvad der antages i den gældende forskningsetiske regulering. Feltarbejdet fulgte et klinisk lægemiddelforsøg og inkluderede observationer af forsøgskonsultationer; interviews med investigatorer, projektsygeplejersker, forsøgsdeltagere og virksomhedsrepræsentanter; samt en mindre spørgeskemaundersøgelse blandt de danske forsøgsdeltagere. Resultaterne indikerer, at (...) for en gruppe af erfarne forsøgsdeltagere handler beslutningerne om forsøgsdeltagelse ikke om forsøget i sig selv, men om at opretholde en nær relation til forskningspersonalet. Disse patienter orienterer sig ikke efter deltagerinformation, men i forhold til tillidsrelationer. De agerer ikke som autonome individer, men oplever, at de er afhængige af sundhedssystemet. De udtrykker altruistiske motiver, men håber samtidig, at forsøgsdeltagelse vil give dem bedre helbredskontrol. For dem er forsøgsdeltagelse blevet en måde at leve med kronisk sygdom. Mulige implikationer af denne situation diskuteres, idet det understreges, at tillidsfulde relationer er en forudsætning både for god behandling og god forskning, men at de tætte relationer samtidig kan bevirke, at patienter bliver mindre kritiske, i forhold til hvilke forsøg de accepterer at deltage i, og at en bevidsthed om forsøgsrelaterede risici fortrænges fra forsøgssituationen.Nøgleord: informeret samtykke, deltagerinformation, deltagermotivation, kliniske forsøg, kronisk sygdom, DanmarkEnglish summary: Informed consent in clinical trials: technicalities, trust and intimate relationshipsThis article explores decisions about clinical trial participation in a group of patients with chronic conditions, focusing especially on motivation for trial participation and trial information. Based on ethnographic research in four Danish hospitals in conjunction with a clinical drug trial, I argue that these patients’ decisions follow logics other than those anticipated in research ethics regulations. I build on observations, interviews with physician-investigators, project nurses, patient-participants and trial sponsors, and a survey of the participants. The results indicate that for a group of experienced trial participants, trial information plays a very limited role because their decisions do not concern the trial per se but the sustainment of a close relationship with the research staff. They do not act as autonomous individuals weighing pros and cons based on the written information they receive. Rather, they feel dependent on the healthcare system and navigate in trust relations. For them, trial participation has become a way of living with chronic disease. I discuss implications of this situation underlining that trustful relationships constitute a precondition for high quality chronic care and research, yet the social dynamics may also lead patients to pay less attention to risks associated with trial participation. (shrink)

as covid-19 set in, many people struggled to find or hold onto hope. TIME magazine devoted its entire annual TIME 100 Most Influential People issue to the very topic, offering up suggestions on how to find hope, from religious leaders, politicians, and celebrities. While some presented helpful ideas, I found myself seeking more satisfying and sustaining answers. I turned to pragmatist philosophers, both old and new, to help me understand what hope is, why it matters, and how to foster it.Intriguingly, (...) classic American pragmatists seem to have much to contribute to discussions of hope and yet have actually said very little explicitly about it. Even as pragmatism complemented the late nineteenth- and... (shrink)

Hobbes was an unusual Christian, and one that recognized the potential power of the Christian story to strengthen commonwealths. This chapter discusses the account of Christianity found in Leviathan, which was designed to replace contemporary versions with one that would promote stability and obedience within the state. Hobbes’s religious ideas, like his political philosophy, began from his understanding of human beings; he insisted that religious belief was natural to humans, stemmed from anxiety, and needed to be coordinated by a sovereign (...) to prevent strife. For Hobbes, Christianity was a particularly effective remedy for such anxiety, at least when interpreted along correct lines. The theology developed by Hobbes was original, but it probably drew on ideas circulating among his Anglican acquaintances; indeed in Leviathan we see these ideas being used for a very different purpose. As Hobbes’s acquaintances realized, at the center of Hobbes’s project in Leviathan lay an extremely heterodox theology which could enhance the state while destroying the independent authority of the Church. (shrink)

La « danse grecque antique » évoque en général des images de chœurs imposants et de festivités dionysiaques, ou encore d’Isadora Duncan dansant au milieu des ruines de l’Acropole. Dans cet article, j’étudie une figure peu connue de la danseuse de l’Antiquité : l’orchestris, ou danseuse de banquet. De ces femmes, marginalisées par leur genre et leur classe, il ne demeure que des traces éparses dans la littérature et les vestiges matériels. En réunissant ces traces, cet article met en lumière (...) la place de la danseuse de banquet dans l’imaginaire culturel grec. Il montre ensuite que l’exploration fictionnelle de la subjectivité des femmes dans le dialogue III des Dialogues des courtisanes de Lucien doit nous inciter à réfléchir à la façon dont le mouvement et l’incarnation ont pu constituer – à toutes les époques – des sources essentielles, bien qu’à jamais hors de notre portée, de la capacité d’agir des orchestrides. (shrink)

Hume claims that judgment is the active device through which beliefs influence emotions. Without such a device, Hume reasons that beliefs and emotions would not in­teract at all, because beliefs are always about ideas while emotions are reactions to events in the world. Judgment is the link between the theoretical and the applied aspects of the human being, and is, if Hume is right, crucial for any system of philosophical counseling to be successful. No client would attempt to modify his (...) or her beliefs, or reflect on the thoughts of philosophers, without some expectation of an emotional payoff. The counseling process hinges on a link between reason and the emotions, but what is the nature of this link? Since judgment is itself (if we are lucky) a primarily rational process, the question of the connection between reason and the emotions seems to be left unanswered. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between reason and the emotions by taking judgment to be judgment of truth or falsity. Once a belief is deemed to be true by the client, an assessment is made as to how this truth will affect the client’s well being. I argue that this is true even if the client is severely depressed or believes that he/she does not deserve good treatment or good fortune, or seems otherwise unconcerned with his/her well being. If the truth is judged to be a threat to the well being of the client, an emotional reaction ensues. Likewise, if the truth is judged to be a benefit to the client, an emotional reaction will occur. I argue further that even though different truths will be taken as either benefits or threats depending on the client, the ultimate interpretation of the true statement as either benefit or threat will automatically generate an emotional response. If this ontology is correct, then the philosophical counselor will take as his/her primary role 1) a practitioner of epistemology (determining when beliefs are justified and true) and 2) a trainer in interpretation (determining when beliefs are to be interpreted as blessings or threats.). (shrink)