A pioneer in the field of behavioral science delivers a groundbreaking work that shows how finding your purpose in life leads to better health and overall happiness.Your life is a boat. You need a rudder. But it doesn't matter how much wind is in your sails if you're not steering toward a harbor--an ultimate purpose in your life.While the greatest philosophers have pondered purpose for centuries, today it has been shown to have a concrete impact on our health. Recent studies (...) into Alzheimer's, heart disease, stroke, depression, functional brain imaging, and measurement of DNA repair are shedding new light on how and why purpose benefits our lives.Going beyond the fads, opinions, and false hopes of "expert" self-help books, The Science of Purpose explores the incredible connection between purposeful living and the latest scientific evidence on quality of life and longevity. Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy, literature, psychology, evolutionary biology, genetics, and neuroscience, as well as his experience in public health research, Dr. Vic Strecher reveals the elements necessary for a purposeful life and how to acquire them, and outlines an elegant strategy for improving energy, willpower, and long-term happiness, and well-being. He integrates these core themes into his own personal story--a tragedy that led him to reconsider his own life--and how a deeper understanding of purposeful living helped him not only survive, but thrive.Illuminating, accessible, and authentically grounded in real people's experiences, The Science of Purpose is essential reading for everyone seeking lasting improvement in their lives. (shrink)

Many scholars are ready to accept that first person thought involves a special way w such that, for any thinker x, only x can access the first person way w of thinking about x. Standard articulations of this Frege-inspired view involve a rejection of the strict shareability of first person thought. I argue that this rejection eventually forces us to renounce an intuitively plausible characterisation of communication, and specifically, disagreement. This result invites us to explore alternative articulations which, still within (...) an overall Fregean framework, may better explain how first person thoughts reach out into a public, shareable dimension. Here I shape this possibility in terms of perspectives, i.e. ways of thinking that do not individuate concepts or thoughts. Perspectives, I submit, can serve to unproblematically accommodate basic disagreement in indexical cases and to outline the dynamic character of first person thought. (shrink)

This article introduces the notion of multiple glocalizations as a means of analysing Christianity’s historical record and argues that multiple glocalizations are constitutive of the intertwining between religion and historical globalization. It proposes that four concrete forms of glocalization can be observed: vernacularization, indigenization, nationalization and transnationalization. Each of these offers different combinations of universal religiosity and local particularism. The salience of this interpretation is demonstrated through a cursory analysis of the historical record of Christianity’s fragmentation. It is argued that (...) the very construction of distinct religious traditions (Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism) is an expression of this broader process. Finally, the historical record of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is examined in order to provide for additional historical instances of these forms of glocalization. (shrink)

The expression of attachment to the divine in certain places among different groups has been documented by anthropologists and sociologists for decades. However, the psychological processes by which this happens are not yet fully understood. This article focuses on the concept of ‘place spirituality’ as a psychological mechanism, which allows the religious believer or non-believer to achieve an organised attachment strategy, involving the interplay of place and spiritual attachment. First, place spirituality is considered as an experience that satisfies the attachment (...) relationship criteria in that geographic places and divine entities can be perceived as ‘objects’ of attachment. Second, it is proposed that the maturational aspects of the attachment repertoire in adults make the place spirituality experience possible since adults’ cognitive abilities are much wider than those of children and can include relationships to geographical spaces and invisible divine entities. Finally, the theme of place spirituality is explored to further position the concept as a relational paradigm for understanding the relationship between place experiences and spiritual attachment. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.

Diatoms are a species‐rich group of photosynthetic eukaryotes, with enormous ecological significance and great potential for biotechnology. During the last decade, diatoms have begun to be studied intensively using modern molecular techniques and the genomes of four diatoms have been wholly or partially sequenced. Although new insights into the biology and evolution of diatoms are accumulating rapidly due to the availability of reverse genetic tools, the full potential of these molecular biological approaches can only be fully realized if experimental control (...) of sexual crosses becomes firmly established and widely accessible to experimental biologists. Here we discuss the issue of choosing new models for diatom research, by taking into account the broader context of diatom mating systems and the place of sex in relation to the intricate cycle of cell size reduction and restitution that is characteristic of most diatoms. We illustrate the results of our efforts to select and develop experimental systems in diatoms, using species with typical life cycle attributes, which could be used as future model organisms to complement existing ones. BioEssays 30:692–702, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Since 1923 the Sammlung Tusculum has published authoritative editions of Greek and Latin works together with a German translation. The original texts are comprehensively annotated, and feature an introductory chapter. In the new volumes, additional essays delve into specific aspects of the works, illuminating their historical context and reception to the present day. The high academic quality of the new editions together with clearly written essays and annotations make the Sammlung Tusculum essential reading for students who are discovering an ancient (...) author for the first time as well as professional scholars who would like to gain a deeper understanding of specific aspects of a given work. Moreover, the series is ideal for lay readers who would like to engage with antiquity through a reliable German translation. The series contains over 270 titles, available in print and eBook editions, making previously out-of-print titles and rarities available again for the first time. In order to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the series, De Gruyter is proud to present Tusculum Online, an eBook package which contains all titles that appeared between 1923 and 2013 - a fitting tribute to an important part of German publishing history. For more information, please see www.degruyter.com/tusculum. (shrink)

-- 2. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot.

1. T. Der hellenische Staat.--2. T. Der hellenistische Staat.

This issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy brings together fresh essays addressing three main genres of questions: questions about the nature of bioethical inquiry and the relevance of the humanities to medical practice; questions regarding the ethics of organ donation; questions bearing on the application of fairness to the distribution of medical resources.

A finales del año pasado se publicaba el Informe sobre juventud en España que periódicamente elabora el INJUVE (Instituto de la Juventud de España). Unas investigaciones sobre la cuestión que, junto a las elaboradas por la Fundación Santa María, son unas de las máximas referencias a la hora de observar las evoluciones que se producen entre los jóvenes españoles.

There is now an established literature on the link between later Wittgenstein and enactivist approaches in cognitive science. However, is this link not just a matter for card carrying Wittgensteinians? Can enactivists not manage perfectly well without Wittgenstein? In this paper, I show why some enactivists should care about Wittgenstein. Focusing on the enactivist view, “Sensorimotor Identity”. I argue that proponents of this view can use Wittgensteinian considerations to resolve an issue confronting their view and thereby shore up their proposed (...) dissolution of the explanatory gap. Some enactivists thus have in fact much to gain by engaging with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Este artículo, partiendo de un proceso metalingüístico estandarizado, pretende mostrar algunas alternativas psicolingüísticas al aprendizaje conversacional. El desarrollo del estudio corresponde al siguiente esquema: (1) Importancia de la comprensión metalingüística en el perfeccionamiento de una le..

Since the 1960s, the concepts of the ‘global’ and the ‘transnational’ have challenged the state-centred orientation of several disciplines. By 1989, the ‘global’ contained sufficient ambiguity and conceptual promise to emerge as a potentially new central concept to replace the conventional notion of modernity. The consequences of the 1989 revolutions for this emerging concept were extensive. As a result of the post-communist ‘New World Order’, a new vision of a single triumphant political and economic system was put forward. With the (...) ‘globalizing of modernity’ as a description of the post-1989 reality, ‘globalization’ became the policy mantra of the Clinton and Blair administrations up until the late 1990s when ‘anti-globalization’ activists were able to question the salience of this dominant theory of ‘globalization’. In scholarly discussion, ‘globalization’ became a floating signifier to be filled with a variety of disciplinary and political meanings. In the post-9/11 era, this Western-centred ‘globalization’ has been conceptually linked to cosmopolitanism while it has played a minor role in the multiple modernities agenda. The article concludes with an assessment of the current status of the ‘global’ in theory and research. (shrink)

Many authors have identified a link between later Wittgenstein and enactivism. But few have also recognised how Wittgenstein may in fact challenge enactivist approaches. In this paper, I consider one such challenge. For example, Wittgenstein is well known for his discussion of seeing-as, most famously through his use of Jastrow’s ambiguous duck-rabbit picture. Seen one way, the picture looks like a duck. Seen another way, the picture looks like a rabbit. Drawing on some of Wittgenstein’s remarks about seeing-as, I show (...) how Wittgenstein poses a challenge for proponents of Sensorimotor Enactivism, like O’Regan and Noë, namely to provide a sensorimotor framework within which seeing-as can be explained. I claim that if these proponents want to address this challenge, then they should endorse what I call Sensorimotor Identification, according to which visual experiences can be identified with what agents do. (shrink)

Es gibt kein logisch gültiges Induktionsverfahren. Induktion ist Extrapolation von bisher erfahrenen Einzeltatsachen auf künftige. Die Zukunft ist aber selbst schon eine Extrapolation, keine Erfahrungstatsache, sondern Erwartung. Um sich nicht bloß auf historische Erkenntnis beschränken zu müssen, ist es unentbehrlich, die Voraussetzung zu machen, daß unter gleichen Bedingungen das Gleiche erfolgt. Auf Grund dieser Voraussetzung läßt sich deduktiv ableiten, was induktiv erwiesen werden sollte, aber nicht möglich ist. Logisch stichhaltige Begründung ist nur deduktiv möglich.