scholarly journals Nietzsche on Sickness and Health

The Agonist ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. Hatab
Keyword(s):  
Viral Infection ◽  
Physical Illness ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Ascetic Ideal ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Natural Life

Living in the time of a pandemic, where illness has become a prominent concern, it might do well to consider Nietzsche’s thinking on sickness and health, which is far from a clear-cut delineation and calls for careful and circumspect analysis. I begin by distinguishing three types of sickness and health: physical, psychological, and cultural, where health in each type can initially be understood as flourishing unimpaired by sickness. Physical illness involves some infirmity of the body, such as cancer or viral infection. Psychological illness is some malady of the mind, such as depression. Cultural illness is the kind of thing emphasized by Nietzsche and involves a worldview that is symptomatic of life denial and nihilism when measured against natural life instincts, energies, and needs—for instance, the story Nietzsche tells about slave morality and its production of the ascetic ideal that has contaminated Western thought.

scholarly journals Catholic Perspectives on Human Biotechnological Enhancement

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
Andrew Pinsent ◽  
Sean Biggins
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Catholic Culture ◽  
The Mind ◽  
To Receive

Although there is some consonance in the language of transcendence between proponents of the Catholic faith and of human biotechnological enhancement (HBE), their goals are incommensurate. Nevertheless, consistent with the valuation of the body as integral to the human person, Catholic culture has in fact proven to be a fruitful context for developing external therapeutic HBEs. Catholic perspectives on internal HBEs, especially in the context of ‘transhumanism’, are, by contrast, neither clear-cut nor easy to establish. A prerequisite for progress is to understand what is meant by flourishing in a Catholic worldview, the root metaphor of which is second-person relatedness to God, culminating in divine friendship. Hence important measures of success of internal HBEs will include sustaining, or at least not impeding, thoughtful attention and the capacity to receive experiences that can sanctify the mind.

Why the Modern Intellectual Cannot Attain the Truth?

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aadil Farook
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Circuits ◽  
Computer Technology ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe body-soul duality has confused some of the most sophisticated minds since antiquity. The spiritual masters of all traditions claim that the soul, too, has organs. Let us look at what Western philosophy calls the mind-body problem. Neuroscientists claim the mind-brain duality is true; the mind is to the soul what the brain is to the body. The mind is a “spiritual” brain distinct from the biological brain. To understand how they interact, we will look at computer technology as an analogy. Intelligence itself is part of the software, but it cannot perform its function without its information processor, i.e. the hardware. The intelligence is the software whereas the brain is the hardware. Furthermore, in both cases, the former is non-material whereas the latter is material.Perhaps the two most fascinating scientific discoveries in the last few years are the following. First, the biological heart, which was viewed for centuries as being nothing more than a pump, is actually a great deal more - it is an intelligent organ. Secondly, there is a duality in the heart as well: in addition to the biological heart, there is also a spiritual heart. But the mystery goes much deeper than that and, if it had been understood properly in the modern period, would not have given birth to so many “isms.” The history of Western thought is full of false prophets who claim to lead humankind out of darkness. Is it not amazing how some of the most educated and intelligent people can become completely foolish when it comes to religion? People who can design highly complex integrated circuits can still fail to understand the simple teachings of religious scriptures.This article deals with the major philosophical and spiritual implications of the new insights brought to us by science on a much larger scale than anticipated by those who explored them.

Burnout of the Mind – Burnout of the Body?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Traunmüller ◽  
Kerstin Gaisbachgrabner ◽  
Helmut Karl Lackner ◽  
Andreas R. Schwerdtfeger
Keyword(s):  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Maslach Burnout Inventory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Urinary Catecholamines ◽  
Morning Cortisol ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cortisol Increase

Abstract. In the present paper we investigate whether patients with a clinical diagnosis of burnout show physiological signs of burden across multiple physiological systems referred to as allostatic load (AL). Measures of the sympathetic-adrenergic-medullary (SAM) axis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis were assessed. We examined patients who had been diagnosed with burnout by their physicians (n = 32) and were also identified as burnout patients based on their score in the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and compared them with a nonclinical control group (n = 19) with regard to indicators of allostatic load (i.e., ambulatory ECG, nocturnal urinary catecholamines, salivary morning cortisol secretion, blood pressure, and waist-to-hip ratio [WHR]). Contrary to expectations, a higher AL index suggesting elevated load in several of the parameters of the HPA and SAM axes was found in the control group but not in the burnout group. The control group showed higher norepinephrine values, higher blood pressure, higher WHR, higher sympathovagal balance, and lower percentage of cortisol increase within the first hour after awakening as compared to the patient group. Burnout was not associated with AL. Results seem to indicate a discrepancy between self-reported burnout symptoms and psychobiological load.

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