The Geometry of Health

Chapter 5 examines the dynamic nature of interfaces and starts examining their characteristics. The authors posit that just as we might derive a multitude of dimensions to describe biological structure, so too are there many dimensions that describe the functional dynamics in how biological systems vary over time. Current environmental epidemiological methods used in analyzing data on our environment and our physiology treat each measure as if it were an independent dimension, much like a carpenter measuring the height, width, or length of a piece of furniture. However, because there are processes underlying our physiological development, constraints are applied to the forms that we and our environment can take. Knowledge of these can be harnessed to identify the primary dimensions along which we must characterize the systems under study. By doing this we were able to take an important first step in operationalizing Environmental Biodynamics for clinical application.

Introduction of the Special Issue “Measures of Spirituality/Religiosity (2018)”

The interest in the topic of spirituality as a more or less independent dimension of quality of life is continuously growing [...]

A More Explicit Framework for Evaluating Objectivity and (Inter)Subjectivity in Modality Domain

In this paper we propose a more explicit framework for definition and evaluation of objectivity and (inter)subjectivity in the modality domain. In the proposed operational framework, we make a basic distinction between the modality notions that serve an ideational function (i.e., dynamic modal notions) and those with an interpersonal function (i.e., deontic and epistemic evaluations). The modality notions with ideational and interpersonal functions are content and person-oriented, respectively. While all dynamic modal notions are characterized by objectivity, deontic and epistemic modal notions may display a degree of (inter)subjectivity depending on their embedding context. Our main claim is that (inter)subjectivity can hardly be argued to be the inherent property of certain modality forms and types, but rather it is essentially a contextual effect. We functionally-operationally define (inter)subjectivity as the degree of sharedness an evaluator attributes to an epistemic/deontic evaluation and its related evidence/deontic source. (Inter)subjectivity is realized by (at least) one or a combination of three contextual factors, viz. the embedding syntactic pattern, the linguistic context and the extralinguistic context of a modality marker. Since both descriptive and performative modal evaluations involve a degree of (inter)subjectivity, performativity, which refers to speaker’s current commitment to his evaluation, is viewed as an independent dimension within modal evaluations and plays no part in the expression of (inter)subjectivity.