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Bewusstsein und Realität: die Frage des Idealismus in der frühen indischen Philosophie

Audio

An audio recording of a lecture by Michael Picard presented before the Gesellschaft für Philosophische Praxis, upon the invitation of Dr. Gerd Achenbach, founder and director of GPP (August 16, 2019). Delivered in German, it was entitled Bewusstsein und Realität: die Frage des Idealismus in der frühen indischen Philosophie (Consciousness and Reality: the Question of Idealism in the early Indian Philosophy). There were about 40 people in attendance, mostly from the circle of Dr. Achenbach. I owe thanks to Dr. Achenbach and his industrious assistant, Laura V. Adrian, who spent the three days prior to the talk translating my lecture and preparing me to deliver it in German.

Digital Document

It is commonly assumed that the desire for a thin female physique and its pathological expression in eating disorders result from a social pressure for thinness. However, such widespread behavior may be better understood not merely as the result of arbitrary social pressure, but as an exaggerated expression of behavior that may have once been adaptive. The reproductive suppression hypothesis suggests that natural selection shaped a mechanism for adjusting female reproduction to socioecological conditions by altering the amount of body fat. In modern Western culture, social and ecological cues, which would have signaled the need for temporary postponement of reproduction in ancestral environments, may now be experienced to an unprecedented intensity and duration.

Digital Document

Post-adoption service use and unmet service needs were examined longitudinally in three matched groups of children: children adopted from Romanian orphanages following a minimum of eight months' institutional experience (RO: n = 36); children from Romania who were destined for orphanages but were adopted early in infancy (EA: n = 25); and Canadian born non-adopted children (CB: n = 42). Data were collected when the adoptees had been in their adoptive homes for 11 months, at age 4.5 years and 10.5 years. Results indicated higher rates of service use and unmet service needs across time in the RO group. Unmet service needs in the RO group may be due in part to the unique challenges faced by post-institutionalized adoptees. Service use in the EA group jumped significantly at Phase 3, suggesting that the impact of their lesser degree of early deprivation was seen later in development under the additional challenge and stress of the demands of school. Findings, particularly from the EA group, supported the suggestion that adoptive parents have a lower threshold for referring their children for clinical services than do non-adoptive parents. Service needs of adoptees changed over time and those with unmet needs experienced greater challenges than those whose service needs were met.

Digital Document

We examined behavior problems in 80 adolescents (39 male; mean age = 15.74 years) adopted in early childhood by Canadians from globally depriving Romanian institutions. Overall, rates of clinically significant behavior problems were comparable to rates found in younger postinstitutionalized adopted children. The association between duration of deprivation before adoption and behavior problems indicated relatively less lasting impact of deprivation on the behavior problems of adolescents who were adopted prior to 2 years of age. Measures of attachment, communicative openness about adoption, and exposure to culture of origin, which have been theoretically and, to a lesser extent, empirically linked to adjustment in postinstitutionalized adoptees were unrelated despite their apparent common conceptual link to sensitive parenting. Attachment and communicative openness were each significantly and negatively correlated with behavior problems; exposure to culture of origin was not. Hierarchical regressions revealed independent contributions of attachment and communicative openness to predicting behavior problems in postinstitutionalized adolescents.

Digital Document

Concerns over rising costs have forced police services to balance increasing fiscal and operational pressures. Discussions of the resources and requirements of police, however, are generally only informed by political expediency and traditional practice. Operational reviews (ORs) can be used to document the demands on police, their capacity to respond, and ways in which they can become more efficient and effective. Drawing on an OR of a major urban Canadian police service, this article provides a broad outline of the components of an OR and the analytics that can be used to answer these key questions.

‘You’re 16...you should probably be on the pill’: Girls, the non-reproductive body, and the rhetoric of self-control

Digital Document

In this paper I explore the ways that the use of the pill and the ideal of the non-reproductive body intersect within the unique context of girls as subjects in contemporary Canadian society. Analysis draws on a series of twenty-seven qualitative interviews conducted in Montreal as part of my doctoral research with young Canadian women currently taking the pill. I found that women are expected to exercise choice, even though they have access to very few options. However, this disjuncture is even more marked when the subject in question is a young woman due to the intersection of youth, gender, and sexuality, which produces a more complicated practice of freedom because the boundaries of subjectivity are in flux. The pill is a manifestation of an ethic of rational preventative self-care. While we might embrace these technologies of freedom for how they provide increased control over the body, the material point is that in using technologies like the pill young women enter into complex social systems and relationships that paradoxically limit their autonomy.

Dans leur propre intérêt: La Charte des valeurs québécoises, ou du danger de la religion pour les femmes

Digital Document

Au cours des dix dernières années, plusieurs rapports et débats publics ont exposé clairement la relation entre la laïcité et l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes. Dans de nombreux cas, l’égalité hommes-femmes ne semble être envisagée que dans un contexte laïque. Les récents débats publics sur la religion et la diversité au Québec illustrent bien la manière dont laïcité et égalité des femmes sont mises en parallèle. Dans cet article, nous examinons comment le principe d’égalité hommes-femmes ressort de certains des mémoires présentés devant la Commission Bouchard-Taylor, du rapport des commissaires, ainsi que des discussions publiques ultérieures qui ont été menées sur le sujet. Nous explorons ensuite les modalités selon lesquelles l’égalité hommes-femmes a émergé comme thème central des mémoires présentés à l’Assemblée nationale à l’occasion du débat sur la Charte des valeurs québécoises. Notre analyse révèle que ces mémoires présentent les femmes, croyantes ou non, pratiquantes ou non (religious or non-religious) comme des êtres en mal de protection : c’est en effet le cas pour les femmes qui le sont, si l’on part du principe qu’elles n’ont aucune capacité à agir par soi-même (agency); c’est également celui des femmes qui ne le sont pas dans l’optique où elles ne devraient pas être exposées aux dogmes religieux. Dans notre perspective, ces deux postures s’inscrivent dans la lignée d’une attitude patriarcale qui nie la capacité des femmes à agir selon leur propre volonté. En outre, nous remettons en cause l’idée selon laquelle l’égalité des femmes relève de la laïcité, elle-même impliquée dans le patriarcat et emprisonnée dans la question de l’inégalité des femmes. ENGLISH ABSTRACT Over the past decade, several public reports and discussions have exposed the relationship between secularism and equality between women and men. In many instances, gender equality seems to be considered only in a secular context. Recent public debates on religion and diversity in Quebec illustrate how secularism and equality for women are paralleled. In this article we examine how the notion of gender equality is manifested in some of the briefs submitted before the Bouchard- Taylor Commission, in the report of the commissioners, and in subsequent public discussions conducted on the subject. We then explore the ways in which gender equality has emerged as the central theme of the briefs submitted to the National Assembly of Quebec on the occasion of the debate on the Quebec Charter of Values. Our analysis reveals that both religious and non-religious women are imagined to be in need of protection: religious women because they are assumed to have no agency and non-religious women because they should not be exposed to religious dogma. Both positions, we argue represent the continuation of a patriarchal approach that refutes a woman's ability to act of her own volition. Further, we challenge the idea that gender equality is the property and domain of laïcité, which is itself implicated in patriarchy and invested in the inequality of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital Document

Nancy Fraser’s propositions regarding the nature of ‘boundary’ work carried out by experts within organizations suggests that individuals who work within bureaucratic structures are so constrained by the institutional context that they become detached, depoliticizing arbitrators of politicized claims. The purpose of the research reported in this article is to examine the assertion that workers in boundary roles necessarily engage only in work that depoliticizes the claims of oppositional social groups. By exploring the work of anti-harassment practi- tioners at Canadian universities, we uncover moments of both constraint and liberation in the practitioners’ work roles. Attending to the complexities of boundary role work illustrates that struggles over the definition of needs and claims made by marginalized social groups are not closed, nor are boundary workers completely co-opted by bureaucratic institutional prerogatives. Although variously constrained, interviews with practitioners reveal that their work can support counter-hegemonic challenges to the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital Document

This practical note demonstrates the role that haricot beans play in assisting women to become food and nutrition secure, to generate income, and to have sustainable livelihoods that are resilient to shocks. Based on qualitative research among female and male beneficiaries of a pulse innovation project implemented in southern Ethiopia, the note provides a summary of the critical voices of farmers, and the role that haricot beans play in empowering women. It also outlines some of the challenges that the project faced in achieving its empowerment objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital Document

(Purpose). Evaluating truthfulness is an integral part of any forensic assessment. Unfortunately, the motives underlying the use of deceptive strategies by offenders and how these may be mediated by personality are not well established, particularly in adolescent samples. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to identify different deception‐related motivations in a sample of juvenile offenders, with special emphasis placed on the relationship between these motivations and psychopathic traits. (Methods.) Archived file and videotaped information for 60 Canadian federal juvenile offenders were reviewed in order to identify real‐life (spontaneous) patterns of deceptive motivations. (Results.) It was found that there were significant differences between the low, medium, and high groups across psychopathic traits for the motivations of (1) lies to obtain a reward; (2) to heighten self‐presentation; and (3) for duping delight. (Conclusions.) Not only were juvenile offenders found to lie for a variety of reasons, but also psychopathy was found to mediate the specific motivational patterns leading to offender perpetrated deception. The relevance of these findings to the assessment of truthfulness in offender populations is discussed.

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