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This paper offers an interpretation of Locke's understanding of life, challenging a familiar reading which treats him as endorsing a mechanical reduction of the living body. Against the mechanists, Locke clearly states that the internal movement constitutive of life is excited from within the organism, and he also holds that the coordination of the bodily organs (their unity of function) cannot be understood mechanically. Rather, the different parts of the organism enjoy a ‘vital union', a concept that Locke borrows from Henry More and the Cambridge Platonists. In the final part of the paper, it is shown how personhood, on Locke's understanding, partakes in this vital union and how the person is thus embodied in the human organism, or ‘Man’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper endeavors to argue that Derrida's deconstructionist ethics can be construed as an embodiment of immanent ethics. To achieve this goal, it commences with Friedrich Nietzsche's articulation of immanent ethics, drawing a contrast with formalist and conformist accounts of morality, exemplified in Kant. Following that, the paper explores the ethical thoughts of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze to establish a connection between immanent ethics and the problem of life. In this context, we observe how immanent ethics redirects ethical concerns from human consciousness to the domain of life, modes of existence, the unconscious desire and its exteriority. Within this framework, the paper characterizes Derrida's ethics of deconstruction as a convergence of the immanence of deconstruction and deconstruction as a creative mode of life. As a result, Derrida's formulation of ethical challenges within the context of aporias, impossibility, and responsibility can be understood as a call for resistance against conformity to established forms of life. This imbues deconstruction with an intrinsic ethical-political character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle-aged adults typically play multiple roles with centralized responsibility for younger and older persons. Midlife health and well-being impact the state of aging in later years. Limited studies have investigated midlife experiences from the perspective of the middle-aged group themselves. This paper presents a systematic review of middle-aged women's perceptions and experiences of midlife through a qualitative synthesis. Systematic databases searches resulted in 938 articles. Six selected articles were analyzed and three core themes were identified using thematic analysis: heightened awareness of lifespan, expectation of establishment and freedom from expectations, clarity of values, and self-acceptance. The findings showed the interconnected and progressive nature of midlife experiences toward a hoped for sense of congruence, revealing its connectivity to subsequent life stages and importance for healthy development. Credible and relevant information need to be provided as resources for the middle-aged women themselves and pertinent healthcare professionals. Proper information is also needed to address stereotypes, educate the public and equip relevant educators with evidence-based knowledge. Further research on midlife experiences in general from the perspective of middle-aged males, and in diverse settings is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time perspective (TP) offers a new understanding of human personality, postulating that there are individual differences in how our mind assigns our experiences to different time categories. This concept may shed new light on the role of personality traits in shaping vulnerability to the internalized stigma. In this paper we propose a novel approach to clarifying the underpinning of self-stigma by empirically exploring its links with TP. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 86 patients with ICD-10 diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia to validate the predictive role of TP for self-stigma. We used the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale (ISMI) and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). We found significant positive correlations of self-stigma with Past-Negative, Future-Negative and Present-Fatalistic TP categories and negative correlation with the Future-Positive category. The hierarchical regression analyses revealed that two TP categories and Deviation from the Balanced Time Perspective (DBTP) are significant predictors of self-stigma over and above sociodemographic and clinical control variables. Conclusion. The results of the study confirm the hypothesis that TP opens new possibilities to understand proneness or resistance to self-stigmatization, and this may provide a basis for novel approaches to anti-self-stigma interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As media, animation entertains by creating virtual worlds with affective storytelling and compelling aesthetic. As epistemology, animation creates new conceptualisations of life both by being the technology that brings the inanimate into life and by making otherwise impossible visualisations of the worlds that do or do not exist. An analysis of three thematically distinct animations demonstrates the ways animation can engage with the ontological turn in STS studies based on its unique technological and visual capabilities. With a focus on the epistemology of life itself, The Inner Life of the Cell follows the life of a white blood cell 'in action,' Golden Kamuy explores indigenous knowledge through unlikely partnership between an Ainu woman and a Japanese soldier and, through a female cyborg, Ghost in the Shell thinks techno-human relations including self-aware AI. The three animations open up new perspectives in turning away from anthropocentrism and West-centrism toward multispecies life. They articulate the idea of the ontological turn within a new framework – the multispecies symbiotic framework in which symbiosis is the basis of life and epistemology of life. Those roles can be illuminaterd by several concepts: symbiosis in biology and anarchist science, multispecies anthropology, ethnography, and science and technology studies following the ontological turn. In multiple ways, animation can contribute new visualisations and conceptualisations of nonhuman and human life and knowledge of life in actor-networks and rhizomatic assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For those who have suffered from trauma and are struggling with PTSD, finding healing through spiritual means can be a meaningful experience for trauma survivors, caregivers, and their loved ones. While much of the current research on PTSD recovery focuses on psychological, physiological, social, and cognitive factors, the spiritual dimension is often overlooked despite its increasing recognition in recent years. This study explores the experiences of individuals who attribute their recovery from PTSD to spirituality, with participants from diverse backgrounds of religion, culture, nationality, and level of faith who have experienced various traumas and recovery methods. The study identifies four stages of recovery: disappointment and disconnection, rock bottom, a leap into spirituality, and mutual forgiveness leading to reconnection. The role of powerlessness in the recovery process is also examined, and a model for a spiritually-based approach to recovery containing the four phases and three turning points is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports empirical outcomes of an ongoing transdisciplinary participatory community action research project that implements behavioral activation in homeless shelters. The overall goal of this Project is twofold: (1) to improve psychosocial functioning of shelter residents and enhance their opportunities to overcome homelessness; and (2) to enhance civic development of service-learning students who assist in Project implementation. Two studies are reported, representing these goals. Study 1 found that residents of a men's shelter (n = 892), women's shelter (n = 433), and transitional housing (n = 40) perceived behavioral activation sessions as immediately beneficial (i.e., important, meaningful, worthy of repeating, and enjoyable), and over the course of shelter stay, they perceived behavioral activation as contributing to their hope, empowerment/self-sufficiency, quality of life, purpose/meaning in life, wellbeing, social support, shelter social climate, and relationships with staff. Quantitative findings are supported by qualitative data (comments by residents on forms). Study 2, which replicates and extends past research on civic-development in service-learning students, used a new quasi-experimental design to compare service-learning students (n = 41) in an interdisciplinary course on homelessness versus non-service-learning students (n = 16) in a psychology course. Service-learning students showed pre- to post-semester improvements in community service self-efficacy, decreases in stigmatizing attitudes, and increases in awareness of privilege and oppression, but students not engaged in service-learning did not show these civic-related changes. These quantitative results are supported by qualitative data (written reflections by students). Results and implications are discussed within the context of the concept of psychopolitical validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]