The interaction between the patient and the doctor is refracted through the phenomenon of trust. In antiquity, an individual's self-care took place through metaphorical objects: dreams and their retelling, revision, mirror, etc. In the age of Enlightenment, trust becomes in some way an economic characteristic that measures the attitude towards a person and forms an idea about him. In the moral context, the phenomenon of trust manifests itself through sympathy, which is meant as a «social lubricant» (A. Smith), which ensures (...) the development of a sense of brotherhood and at the same time makes semantic adjustments to the definition of personal space. In the philosophy of the XX century. in the works of P. Shtompka, E. Giddens, M. Foucault, A. Seligman, trust appears in a different explanation: philosophers form this concept through ethical behavior, seek to find a difference through correlation with its synonyms (confidence, faith). The social function of trust is interwoven into the medical field in the aspect of the relationship between the patient and the doctor. The interaction between the patient and the doctor is accompanied by verbal and non-verbal communication (the article attempts to clarify trust through the latter type of communication), which allows the former to expect a definite statement and/or build behavior: treat the doctor with suspicion or trust him. The pattern of the doctor's behavior determines the conclusion about himself on the part of the patient. The patient monitors how he is being examined and gives an internal assessment. In the process of communication, their relationship moves from a paternalistic model of relations to a collegial one (according to the concept of R. Veatch). The doctor, through an examination (professional or superficial), forms an idea of the disease at the same time about (not) meeting the patient's expectations. In comparing the external through the internal, the patient shows components of care: social practices (observation and/or detection of symptoms by a doctor, for example) in an individual human being (E.N. Bolotnikova). (shrink)

The Choicebetween writing and livingchoosing the latteris simply naturalthough you don't always havea choice—so said the womanchosen by the formerif the second is more naturalwhy do I keep being thrown to the shorefrom the water whereI am a fishon the landI am catching my breathwith respiration inspirationwriting with my tail on the sanduntil I'm washed up into livingby the waveagainyou do have a choicebut you always make the wrong one2018The Serpent of SilenceFriday evening. There's nothing left to talk about.A silver-headed (...) serpent of silence slithers out.You warm it, let it sparkle on your breast,spreading the fragile cavities of language with its body.The ones that escape don't hurry to acquire possessions,the smaller and lighter the load, the faster the steps.Don't admit what was said hurts you, burns you,the blossoming wrinkles around your mouth hardly noticeable.Embrace me. A thousand sentences crawl toward the light—and rush down, flying apart in all directions, like arrows.I pretend that I don't notice the serpentthat encircles your neck with iron rings.2018Then the Poems ComeThen the poems come and stand at the door like children,asking for bread. Asking to be led out into the light.Bread crumbs scattered. What should I give you, little ones?Days are going through a countdown like soldiers do.I pull the rusty blade of language from my throat.What should I treat you to? A cutout from my calf again?I can't shove them into the oven, fairytale-like, or abandon them.Just embrace them carefully, these large-eyed calamities.Kiss them on the forehead, like those who have gone too soon,lying like seeds in the earth that hasn't been plowed,with rabid holes that are screaming into space.Stop asking for food, you should finally grow up.There's a long road ahead in the tunnel along the rail spines.What's this light? On the horizon, wheat is burning.2022On a Knife's EdgeThe voice of a bird is a breath in the fluteof time, the stalk of a reed.How much longer should wind catch us, how longmust our shadows be carried on his wings?How long must we follow the paths of the deadwhich are like a noose or a talisman?Burdened, trudging thousands of kilometers—they lead us astray from new roads ahead.Not a single day of solitude or quiet,peace—on a knife's edge.We are mountains. And we would grow taller,if no one interfered.We would grow rebelliously far and wideand cast rays of sunlight all around.The flowers of strawberries. The path smells of steps.The oak swallows the light from graves.2020. (shrink)

Duties to oneself are allegedly incoherent: if we had duties to ourselves, we would be able to opt out of them. I argue that there is a constraint on one’s ability to release oneself from duties to oneself. The release must be autonomous in order to be normatively transformative. First, I show that the view that combines the division of the self with the second-personal characterization of morality is problematic. Second, I advance a fundamental solution to the problem of the (...) incoherence of duties to oneself, one that does not rely on any division of the self, temporal or otherwise. I build upon the prevalent idea that, in releasing others from duties, we exercise the power of consent. The transformative force of consent partly derives from our autonomy. Invoking a plausible characterization of autonomy, I argue that release from duties requires the right kind of mental state. (shrink)

This article examines why and how workers adhere and contribute to the perpetuation of the freedom fantasy induced by neoliberal ideology. We turn to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the human condition, which offers invaluable insights into the mechanisms that foster the erosion of human freedom in the workplace. Embracing an Arendtian lens, we demonstrate that individuals become entrapped in a libertarian fantasy—a condition enacted by the replacement of the freedom to act by the freedom to perform. The latter embodies the (...) survivalist modus operandi of animal laborans who renounces singularity, by focusing on the function of supervised labor, who renounces solidarity, by focusing on individualist and competitive labor, and who is deprived of spontaneity, by focusing on the measured productivity of labor. Therefore, we propose a new corporate governance perspective based on the rehabilitation of political action in organizations as the best way to preserve human capacity for singularity, solidarity, and spontaneity. (shrink)

The subject of the research is the concept of "Russian idea" from the point of view of its transformation in the conditions of the modern postmodern paradigm. The characteristic markers forming the modern cultural-historical and philosophical paradigm are revealed – the specifics of their influence on the concept of "Russian idea" are analyzed. An example of the modern representation of the "neo-Eurasian" version of the concept as interpreted by A. G. Dugin demonstrates how in a postmodern situation, even ideas that (...) are in discursive opposition to postmodern principles inevitably turn out to be embedded in the modern paradigm. Russian postmodern situation determines the specific forms of existence of the concept of "Russian idea", which, in turn, are representative for the analysis of phenomena, processes and transformations of modern Russian culture and the study of its dynamics. The novelty of the research lies in the analysis of the "Russian idea" as a concept with an unchanging semantic core, fixed through the presence of cross–cutting terms, as well as in identifying the characteristic types of modern forms of existence of the concept - Messianic, conservative-protective, nationalist, neo-Eurasian, political-ideological, liberal and others. The article analyzes and identifies the patterns of the constitution of the concept "Russian idea" in the conditions of the postmodernist paradigm, examines the specific markers characterizing the concept in the postmodern situation. The "Russian idea", on the one hand, is opposed to postmodernism as an axiological antinomy, on the other hand, modern markers of the concept are revealed, making it part of the postmodern system. (shrink)

Contemporary psychiatry is becoming more biologically oriented in the attempt to elicit a biological rationale of mental diseases. Although mental disorders comprise mostly functional abnormalities, there is a substantial overlap between neurology and psychiatry in addressing cognitive disturbances. In schizophrenia, the presence of cognitive impairment prior to the onset of psychosis and early after its manifestation suggests that some neurocognitive abnormalities precede the onset of psychosis and may represent a trait marker. These cognitive alterations may arise from functional disconnectivity, as (...) no significant brain damage has been found. In this review we aim to revise A.R. Luria’s systematic approach used in the neuropsychological evaluation of cognitive functions, which was primarily applied in patients with neurological disorders and in the cognitive evaluation in schizophrenia and other related disorders. As proposed by Luria, cognitive processes, associated with higher cortical functions, may represent functional systems that are not localized in narrow, circumscribed areas of the brain, but occur among groups of concertedly working brain structures, each of which makes its own particular contribution to the organization of the functional system. Current developments in neuroscience provide evidence of functional connectivity in the brain. Therefore, Luria’s approach may serve as a frame of reference for the analysis and interpretation of cognitive functions in general and their abnormalities in schizophrenia in particular. Having said that, modern technology, as well as experimental evidence, may help us to understand the brain better and lead us towards creating a new classification of cognitive functions. In schizophrenia research, multidisciplinary approaches must be utilized to address specific cognitive alterations. The relationships among the components of cognitive functions derived from the functional connectivity of the brain may provide an insight into cognitive machinery. (shrink)

What do consumers do with their used clothing, books, and children’s toys? In this research, we introduce metaphoric “fresh start” messaging as an effective tactic to encourage consumers to engage in environmentally sustainable actions of donating used products for remanufacture or reuse. Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory and construal theory, we contrast metaphoric “fresh start” messaging with dominant “reduce waste” and “recycle” non-metaphoric environmental messages. Across six experimental studies, metaphoric “fresh start” messaging is more effective in increasing environmentally sustainable actions, (...) including used product donations and donation intentions. The effectiveness of metaphoric “fresh start” messaging is grounded in its activation of abstract thinking as “rebirth associations,” thoughts around new beginnings, renewal, and new life. We examine the effectiveness of metaphoric “fresh start” (vs. non-metaphoric environmental) messaging with the use of “fresh start” temporal landmarks (New Year’s Day and Earth Day) and find that metaphoric “fresh start” messaging, with or without these temporal landmarks, is more effective in triggering abstract thinking as “rebirth associations.” Our work substantiates the power of metaphoric “fresh start” messaging in encouraging consumers’ environmentally sustainable actions and has significant implications for the use of conceptual metaphors in marketing messages. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s writings on religious and magical beliefs, especially the “Lectures on Religious Belief” and “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” are taken to imply semantic incommensurability and inaccessibility by the Wittgensteinian Fideism and, in part, the expressivist interpretation. According to these interpretations, religious and non-religious discourses are self-contained, closed, and not intertranslatable. Wittgenstein is taken to deny mutual understanding between believers and non-believers with respect to religious and magical discourse. I argue against such interpretations and support readings by Kusch, Schroeder, and (...) Tripodi that are optimistic of the possibility of mutual understanding. Nevertheless, there is a danger of scepticism for such optimistic readings when they refer to a special attitude that is needed to understand religious belief and speech. I offer a reply to this problem and suggest to see Wittgenstein’s stance on understanding religious discourse in a greater proximity to his general views about language in his later writings. Then, however, any fideist view of the religious form of life as self-contained and isolated from the non-religious has to be repudiated. (shrink)

Mikhail Bakhtin’s term “participative reason” (uchastnoe myshlenie) means “reason that acts”—a way of thinking in which a person participates because it is not indifferent to the fate of the Other. The article considers two main trends in the understanding of participative reason. The first is connected with the co-being of I and the Other, the second develops the idea of obligation and non-alibi in being. The article aims to show that the unity of these two interpretations could make “participative reason” (...) a basis for a more decent human world. (shrink)

The article considers the key factors in development of the religious situation in the second half of the twentieth century, which caused a radical change in the attitude to the theory of secularization by sociologists of religion. From the beginning, the theory of secularization was a core part of the general theory of modernization and marked the specifics of modernization`s impact on religious life. However, the inability to explain such phenomena as the sharp rise in religiosity in post-socialist countries, as (...) well as the consistently high level of religiosity in the typically modernist United States, led researchers to abandon the classical theory of secularization. Another reason for the change in the attitude to secularization was the presence of a religious component in numerous political conflicts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The religious factor in the conflicts was so unusual and decisive that under its influence the theory of “clash of civilizations” by S. Huntington was born at the end of the twentieth century. Even though the general theory of modernization has not disappeared and still remains popular among sociologists of religion, there is no clear reference to the theory of secularization. Secularization is considered either a random part of modernization processes at certain stages, or one of the options for the development of the religious situation along with counter-secularization, or even completely rejected as a false positivist construct that has not been validated with the real state of affairs. (shrink)

Стаття присвячена проблемі визначення сутності культурних парадигм Заходу та Сходу. Зроблено смисловий акцент на питанні про причини розмежування західної та східної культурних традицій. Наголошується, що біфуркацію Схід–Захід неодмінно слід пов’язувати з періодом «осьового часу» (VIII–II ст. до н.е.), визначеного К. Ясперсом як центральний момент, вихідна точка світової історії, осягнення смислу якої здатне наблизити до розуміння всесвітньої історії в цілому. З огляду на питання про причини біфуркації Схід–Захід доводиться важливість і продуктивність дослідження Е. С. Кульпіна, який з позицій соціоприродної історії запропонував (...) пояснення феномена поляризації матриць соціальних цінностей Сходу й Заходу й обгрунтував, що ця поляризація була зумовлена першою чергою наявністю двох негативних тенденцій у кліматі Землі періоду «осьового часу» – аридизації та похолодання раннього залізного віку. Особливу увагу у статті приділено проблемі визначення сутності й з’ясуванню причин поляризації світоглядних цінностей Заходу та Сходу. Доводиться необхідність врахування того, що К. Ясперсу вдалося лише зафіксувати феномен «осьового часу», проте не вдалося його пояснити, тобто показати його значення в контексті «до-осьових» і власне «осьових» культур, що, врешті решт, і призвело до наявності своєрідних «білих плям» – порушених, але так і не розв’язаних питань в його концепції. У зв’язку з цим було показано, що ліквідувати, «закрити» ці «білі плями» дає можливість здійснення компаративного аналізу концепцій двох авторів – К. Ясперса та М. О. Чмихова. Головним здобутком проведення такого роду компаративного аналізу стала ідея про те, що поляризація світоглядних матриць Заходу та Сходу зумовлена реальною загрозою трансформації перевіреної не одним тисячоліттям світоглядної «формули» П>С (домінування у світогляді природних сил над соціальними) на свою протилежність (С>П) саме в «осьовий» період. Більше того – в такий спосіб вдалося пов’язати докорінно відмінний зміст систем соціальних цінностей Заходу та Сходу зі змістом їхніх діаметрально протилежних світоглядних парадигм. (shrink)

The current complex inter-confessional relations in Ukraine compel the researcher to address their origins. In view of this, the issue raised by us is of increased interest. One of the most notable events in the history of the n Orthodox Church of the XIX century. was joining it in 1839 by the Uniate. The elimination of the union and the conversion of the Uniates to the fold of the Russian Orthodox Church, and at the same time the weakening of the (...) Polish landlord's land ownership and closely related Catholic church, attempted to implement autocracy in the second half of the XVIII century. In 1794, Catherine II issued an order to eliminate the union, but did not have time to implement it. (shrink)

The article analyzes the emergence and development of the concept of “postmodernity.” The authors investigate the changing understanding of the problem of man in the history of philosophy. The article analyzes the theses of M. Fuko and Z. Bauman and their view of postmodernity in the context of human rights. It is shown that the problem of rights excess replaces the crisis of modernism of lack of rights. The system of values and guiding principles in postmodern times leads to a (...) dilemma between the ability to exercise one’s rights and the ability to influence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Full Collection of Personal NarrativesZohar Lederman, Ola Ziara, Rachel Coghlan, Oksana Sulaieva, Anna Shcherbakova, Oleksandr Dudin, Vladyslava Kachkovska, Iryna Dudchenko, Anna Kovchun, Lyudmyla Prystupa, Yuliya Nogovitsyna, Ghaiath Hussein, Kathryn Fausch, P. P. Kyaw, Ayesha Ahmad, Richard W Sams II, Handreen Mohammed Saeed, Artem Riga, Ryan C. Maves, Elizabeth Dotsenko, Irina Deyneka, Eva V. Regel, and Vita Voloshchuk• An Unsettling Affair• How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our (...) Pain• Adjusting Laboratory Practices to the Challenges of Wartime• Why We Stay• A Semi-Personal Story from a Ukrainian NGO Professional (or a Semi-Professional Story from a Ukrainian Person) Living through the War• When Ethics Survives Where People Do Not: A Story From Darfur• Burma’s Healthcare Under Fire: My Experience as an Exiled Medical Professional• When a Conflict Collapses on a Child: An (Aborted) Medical Evacuation of a Hazara Toddler During the Kabul Airport Blast and the Taliban Takeover• The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of War• Providing Care to a Potential Aggressor: An Ethical Dilemma• One Surgeon’s Experience During Armed Conflict in Ukraine• The Limits of Our Obligations• A Liberating Breath• Soldiers of the Invisible Front: How Ukrainian Therapists Are Fighting for the Mental Health of the Nation Under Fire• Stories of Families with Chronically Ill Pediatric Patients during the War in UkraineCopyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

This document gathers together and translates Heidegger’s notes on Paul Klee that have been published up to now.

This article is a translation of the third chapter of Part Four of Günter Seubold’s Kunst als Enteignis, 2nd ed.. It discusses Martin Heidegger’s notes on Paul Klee.

Human-eyelid conditioning was the principal source of information on Pavlovian conditioning, especially human, in the 1950s and 1960s, but it suffered a sharp decline in productivity, beginning in the late 1960s. The present article treats the decline as a case study with potential implications concerning the survival contingencies of research specialties. We make use of questionnaire data from eyelid-conditioning researchers and examine a variety of publication, topic-of-investigation, and institutional data to identify the major factors in the decline of human-eyelid conditioning.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Russell's Naturalistic Turn 37 INTRODUCTION L RUSSELL'S NATURALISTIC TURN RUSSELI.?S NATURALISTIC TURN NED S. GARVIN Philosophy I Albion College Albion, MI 49224 I Quine, Ontological Relativity (New York: Columbia U. P., 1969), p. 83. 1 Russell advocated this hypothetical acceptance of science much earlier, e.g., in AMa, pp. 398-9. Here we have many of the hallmarks of naturalized epistemology: (I) fallibilism, (2) the "best theory" account of science, (3) (...) the view that "knowing" is a natural phenomenon not confined to humans, and (4) the embedding of epistemology in behavioural psychology. But in 1940 Russell was a foundationalist (though an increasingly moderate one) who insisted that normative, or as he called it, "critical" epistemology must be distinguished from natural epistemology, and that critical epistemology is philosophically more important: "Within its limitations, theory of knowledge of the above sort is legitimate and In the nrst form of theory of knowledge, we accept the scientific account of the world, not as certainly true, but as the best at present available. The world, as presented by science, contains a phenomenon caIled "knowing", and theory of knowledge, in its first form, has to consider what sort of phenomenon this is. Viewed from the outside, it is, to begin with, a characteristic of living organisms, which is (broadly speaking) increasingly displayed as the organism becomes more complex. (Pp. 12-13)2 Both knowledge and error, at this stage, are observable relations between the behaviour of the organism and the facts of the environment. (P. 14) Quine argued that traditional justification requires non-scientific propositions that are more secure than scientific propositions, and we see there are none: science is providing the best account of the world and our knowledge of it. Though we abandon the attempt to justify science, we still attempt to understand it for nearly the same reasons that always motivated epistemology: "in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence".I Russell contemplated a naturalistic turn of his own in 1943, shortly after writing An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and nearly twentyfive years before Quine's landmark address. In the introduction to his Inquiry Russell claims that there are "two different inquiries, both important, and each having a right to the name 'theory of knowledge '" (IM~, p. 12). The first is recognizably natural epistemology: n.s. 11 (summer 1991): 36-S1.SSN 0036-016p ru•••II: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives McMaster University Library Press w. V. Quine's address to the Fourteenth International Congress of Philosophy in 1968, published a year later as "Epistemology Naturalized " in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, is a landmark of recent epistemology, marking the turn from traditional critical epistemology to a descriptive epistemology firmly embedded within natural science. I n 1943 Bertrand Russell wrote a little-known, three-page document he titled "Project of Future Work". It outlines the descriptive project of examining non-demonstrative inference that eventually becomes the focal point of Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. More remarkably, this document anticipates many salient features of naturalized epistemology, e.g., Russell argues that (I) an answer to scepticism is futile, we cannot justify scientific method; (2) the Humean Predicament arises from a traditional insistence on an unrealistic, demonstrative canon of justification; (3) non-demonstrative, fallible inference is already firmly embedded in scientific practice as a canon of inference, and should augment the demonstrative canon; and (4) the primary epistemic· problem is descriptive: in what circumstances does scientific method allow us to infer the existence of something unobserved from what we observe. These claims, in the wake of An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, suggest that Russell was on the verge of his own naturalistic turn. I argue that, despite striking anticipations of naturalized epistemology, Russell develops his descriptive project within a more traditional, critical epistemic perspective. 38 NED S. GARVIN important. But there is another kind of theory of knowledge which goes deeper and has, I think, much greater importance" (IMT;., p. 14). Russell observes that behavioural psychologists omit that they are fallible observers, and this fallibility introduces doubt into their results. Further, naive... (shrink)

The outline of modern macroeconomics took shape in Britain in the early nineteenth century thanks, in part, to David Ricardo, one of the most influential economists of the time. Britain was challenged by monetary inflation, industrial unemployment and the loss of jobs abroad. Ricardo pointed the way forward. As a financier and Member of Parliament, he was well versed in politics and commercial affairs. His expertise is shown by the practicality of his proposals, including the resumption of the gold standard, (...) which was essential given the destabilizing policy of the Bank of England. Ricardo's expertise appears also in his debate with T. R. Malthus about whether an industrial economy can suffer a prolonged depression. Say's Law of Markets and the Quantity Theory of Money figure prominently in his works, but not in an extreme form. He was instead a subtle theorist, recognizing the non-neutrality of money, trade depressions and unemployment. (shrink)

Hintikka has criticized psychologists for "hasty epistemologizing," which he takes to be an unwarranted transfer of ideas from psychology (a discipline dealing with questions of fact) into epistemology (a discipline dealing with questions of method and theory). Hamlyn argues, following Hintikka, that Gibson's theory of perception is an example of such an inappropriate transfer, especially insofar as Hamlyn feels Gibson does not answer several important questions. However, Gibson's theory does answer the relevant questions, albeit in a new and radical way, (...) which suggests that the alleged distinction between psychology and epistemology is suspect. In fact, contrary to Hintikka and Hamlyn's claims, Gibson's theory of perception appears to be a valuable source of epistemological as well as psychological ideas. (shrink)

The Buddha’s final illness, brought on by his last meal prior to his death, was traditionally seen as one of a set of ailments suffered by him at various points during his lifetime. This paper looks at different Buddhist explications of the causes of these ailments and applies them to the episode of the Buddha’s final illness. In both instances, three explanatory strategies are detected: the first stresses the causative importance of the Buddha’s own negative karmic deeds in past lives; (...) the second looks to the negative deeds and karma of others than the Buddha; the third offers non-karmic explanations. The first two engendered two rather different kinds of j?taka stories; the last did not involve any j?takas but highlighted various kinds of ‘natural’ explanations. (shrink)

This paper discusses Wittgenstein's take on the problem of other minds. In opposition to certain widespread views that I collect under the heading of the “No Problem Interpretation,” I argue that Wittgenstein does address some problem of other minds. However, Wittgenstein's problem is not the traditional epistemological problem of other minds; rather, it is more reminiscent of the issue of intersubjectivity as it emerges in the writings of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. This is one sense in which (...) Wittgenstein's perspective on other minds might be called “phenomenological.” Yet there is another sense as well, in that Wittgenstein's positive views on this issue resemble the views defended by phenomenologists. The key to a proper philosophical grasp of intersubjectivity, on both views, lies in rethinking the mind. If we conceive of minds as essentially embodied we can understand how intersubjectivity is possible. (shrink)

Gottfried Martin has recently reminded us of a useful distinction between two possible ways of doing metaphysics. We may proceed by framing a “theory of principles” or by proposing a “theory of being”. Aristotle explicitly formulates both possibilities as the task of metaphysics, formulating a theory of principles in his doctrine of the four types of causal explanation in the first book of the Metaphysics, while exploring the theory of being in a number of other passages, such as Book I, (...) chapters 6 and 9; Book X, chapter 2; and Book XIII. These passages do not elaborate principles whereby we can analyze the structure of certain entities, be they causes, substances or forms, but rather concern themselves with the ontological status of these entities—in what sense can they be said to be? In Plato this distinction is more implicit, but we may contrast the theory of forms developed in the Phaedo and the Republic with the subsequent probing investigation of the being of these forms in the Parmenides and the Sophist. Kant “explicitly claims to have discovered and presented a complete and necessary system of the basic concepts and principles. The proof of the completeness and necessity of this system is the aim of the middle part of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Analytic.” Yet. (shrink)

This chapter examines the sense of irony along with the parallels between the persona of “Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report” and the character of the “ironist” discussed both by philosophical Romantics in the nineteenth century as well as the American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931–2007). For both Colbert and Rorty, irony can be funny and refreshing, and yet at the same time represents a challenge to our beliefs. The chapter looks at the differences between verbal irony and its more robust (...) counterpart, “existential irony,” and examines the extent to which Colbert fits this description. More importantly, the embracing irony has serious implications for how to deal with political responsibilities in the new and more precarious, “post‐ironic” world. (shrink)

A brief presentation of the major conclusions contained in the recently published monograph entitled "The Ascent to Law: Searches and Solutions," written over a period of many years. Chapter headings are: The law - an objective reality. The dogma of the law. The drama of scholarship. Searching. "The entire" substance of the law. Juridical constructs. The logic of laws. The secret of the law. Law - the highest purpose. Law in the life and fate of mankind.

The purpose of the present study was to address the shortcomings of Cronbach’s alpha concerning the semantic overlap between items. Using an example from a motivational measure, the correction of Cronbach’s alpha was applied by partialing out the effects due to conceptual overlap. The significance of Cronbach’s alpha was tested using simulated random data derived from the measure and by estimating the confidence intervals with known and unknown distributions. The results indicated that the uncorrected conceptual overlap coefficient alpha was equal (...) to 0.89 and 0.66 following the correction. After simulating the corrected statistical results, the distribution of alpha with random numbers had an estimate of 95%, equal to 0.41. The lower bound of the corrected alpha distribution was equal to 0.41, suggesting that the corrected alpha could easily belong to the distribution of alpha developed from simulated random numbers. Thus, the semantic overlap between items on a measure represents a significant threat to the validity of the alpha coefficient. (shrink)