Psychologists believe grade schoolers' free play in the United States is universally biased toward single-gender groups. In a study of grade schoolers in a children's museum, already-acquainted kindergartners to sixth graders were observed at three exhibits. While boys chose more automobile play and girls more supermarketing, one-quarter of each group played in settings dominated by the other gender. Boys had no group-size preference; girls had a strong preference for small groups. That preference accounts for most of the gender differences found (...) in children's gender sorting in a novel environment. However, the ubiquity of gender segregation in large groups of grade schoolers was disconfirmed for this setting. (shrink)

Published in 1982, Carol Gilligan's _In a Different Voice_ proposed a new model of moral reasoning based on care, arguing that it better described the moral life of women. ____An Ethic of Care__ is the first volume to bring together key contributions to the extensive debate engaging Gilligan's work. It provides the highlights of the often impassioned discussion of the ethic of care, drawing on the literature of the wide range of disciplines that have entered into the debate. _Contributors:_ Annette (...) Baier, Diana Baumrind, Lawrence A. Blum, Mary Brabeck, John Broughton, Owen Flanagan, Marilyn Friedman, Carol Gilligan, Catherine G. Greeno, Catherine Jackson, Linda K. Kerber, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Zella Luria, Eleanor E. Maccoby, Linda Nicholson, Bill Puka, Carol B. Stack, Joan C. Tronto, Lawrence Walker, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. (shrink)

Dieses von mir im J. 1924 behandelte Papyrusbruchstück wurde 1927 von v. Wilamowitz berücksichtigt. Er hält meine Zurückfuhrüng des Bruchstückes auf Antiphon für sehr ansprechend und auch meine Erklärung für treffend; die Ergänzungen befriedigen ihn nur zum Teil. Letzteres muss ich ihm unbedingt zugeben. Leider sind alle kleinen Fragmente des Papyrus sowie die Zz. 1–6 des Fr. B bei dem Hinüberführen aus England nach Amerika spurlos verschwunden und somit fiir die Wissenschaft auf immer verloren; es ist also nicht mehr möglich (...) zu beurteilen, ob ich Recht hatte, als ich die Zz. 14–15 des Fr. A mit dem Fr. F vereinigte. Dagegen ist Col. II. des Fr. A glücklicherweise erhalten; Prof. W. L. Westermann legte eine ganz hervorragende Freundlichkeit an den Tag, indem er mir zuerst eine photographische Aufnahme davon zusandte und dann meine Lesung an der Hand des Originals prüfte. Bei dem näheren Studium der Photographie bemerkte ich, dass sowohl Hunts Lesung der Z. 7 wie auch meine fruhere durch diese falsche Lesung ins Leben gerufene Erganzung ganz unmöglich sind. Auf der Photographie las ich Z. 7 t περ[ι] επ[ ]ηδ‐‑, und teilte dieses Ergebnis W. L. Westermann mit. Nachdem er in das Original noch einmal eingesehen hatte, antwortete er mir darauf; ‘Das ist die richtige Lesung. Es ist absolut sicher.’ Zu der scheinbar nächstliegenden Ergänzung Περ[] έπ[ιτ]ηδ[ευ]μάτων, die auch ich im ersten Augenblick für passend hielt, kam Westermann, nachdem ihm mein Vorschlag zur richtigen Lesung des Textes bekannt worden war, ganz unabhängig von mir; ich glaube trotzdem dass diese Lesung nicht das Richtige trifft. Wir haben doch in Col. II. eine Reihe von Antithesen ; aus περ Υο‐‑ νης ist aber keine Antithese zu έπιτηδεύματα zu konstruieren. Was nun diese Stelle anbetrifft, so ist hier nur die Lesung Υο möglich, keinesfalls aber das von mir a. a. O. vermutete Υα Aus den Resten Υο. νης oder Υο.νης ist allerdings kein griechisches Wort zu erganzen; doch haben die einzelnen Zeilen des Papyrus nicht gleiche Längen, sodass nichts dem im Wege steht, dass Z. nach Υο auch nichts gestanden habe; dann gelangen wir zur Lesung: πε[ρ] Υο[] έπ[ικ]ηδ [ευ]μάτων, d. h. ‘von der Geburt der Menschen sowie von den Bestattungsbrauchen’ —auch hier haben wir dann, wie in alien anderen Antithesen von Col. II. an der ersten Stelleυμξφροντα, an der zweiten ξυμΦέροντα, vgl. Antiphon, P. Oxy. 1364, Col. III., Z. 28: κατμένξναύτοέστινάΠων. (shrink)

Eight philosophers discuss the works of the best-selling novelist and graphic novelist, including The Graveyard Book, Coraline and Good Omens and reveal their thoughts on the intersection of fantasy and reality and whether the unknown is as ...

Seder ha-teshuvah -- Marpe la-nefesh -- Teshuvah me-ḥayim.

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)

Our objective is to corroborate Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of speech perception and intersubjectivity through an analysis of A. R. Luria's account of semantic aphasia. By emulating Merleau-Ponty's style of analysis in dealing with the work of a contemporary leader in the field of aphasiology, we are able to take up Merleau-Ponty's thought and test whether his conclusions are inevitable or whether they are based on outmoded problems of the psychology and psychopathology of his day. These reflections also enable us to (...) present arguments against both the assumptions of the natural attitude, as well as those of transcendental phenomenology, and so enable us to cast some light on the relation between existential phenomenology and empirical research. By contrasting aphasic and normal perception, we intend to show that ultimately even the aphasiologist is able to characterize aphasic perception only in terms of the aphasic's loss of an "openness" to meanings present in the uttered sounds. We argue that this notion of openness, like that of Merleau-Ponty's notion of "perceptual faith, " requires the reduction but also points to the impossibility of a complete reduction. (shrink)

This essay discusses the brief but extensive correspondence Soviet neuro-psychologist Alexander Luria exchanged with his younger American colleague Oliver Sacks between 1973 and 1977, the year Luria died. Sacks, whose case histories went on to become mainstream bestsellers, always expressed his indebtedness to Luria, whose warm and detailed approach to writing about his patients’ peculiar and sometimes distressing neurological conditions inspired Sacks. This essay explores this influence but also probes distinctions between the two scientists’ understandings of human (...) consciousness tied to the very different social and political contexts in which they conducted their clinical research. (shrink)

Since antiquity, individuals have attempted to relate mental processes to circumscribed areas of the brain. In 1935 the neurologist Wilder Penfield purported to know, “the humming of the mind's machinery, and where words come from,” after he electrically stimulated areas of the exposed human cortex. Recent theories have suggested a functional separation of the dominant and the nondominant hemispheres, the right brain/left brain concept of thought and personality. One author has even proposed that human consciousness and modern civilization developed when (...) the bicameral mind broke down, and the left brain achieved mastery over the right nondominant temporal lobe.Compared to these mechanistic approaches to brain function and human personality, the Russian neurologist, Alesandr Romanovich Luria, and his American follower, Oliver Sacks, have developed a more intellectually satisfying and clinically useful approach which relies on a fuller understanding of the doctor-patient dialogue and the clinical tale. An analysis of Luria's writing about language reveals that mechanistic approaches to language are inadequate; a review of the work of several well-known poets confirms that knowing what a poem means involves more than a recital of its localized contents. Similarly, an examination of three of Sack's clinical tales suggests that even those patients who are grossly awry on a synaptic level can be understood on a personal level to be worthy of respect and even honor. “Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for be cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.”Blaise Pascal,Pensees, (11,72)1. (shrink)