The Sublime

An analysis of the sublime is presented in this chapter. It is argued that experiences of the sublime combine a negative emotional state, in which the individual feels a sense of ‘self-negation’, with a pleasurable sense of the object’s sublime qualities. After reviewing a number of different historical theories of the sublime, it is argued that the positive aspect of the sublime requires that we recognize our psychological capacity to empathize with objects. It is argued that by means of our empathic engagements, we are enthralled by the power of sublime objects. In service of Aestheticism, the sublime gives us a way to become reconciled to hostile or indifferent features of nature.

An Aetiology of Recognition

This chapter explores the suggestion that early attachment underpins the human capacity for empathy, and that empathy, in turn, is a condition of moral competence. We are disposed by nature to seek intimacy with our human conspecifics: the securely attached child learns that, whatever perils the world may hold, his well-being is shielded within the private sphere of personal intimacy. But why should secure attachment also favour—as it does—recognition of moral obligations towards those with whom we have no special standing and share no personal destiny—recognition that the claims of persons as such merit our attention and regard? One answer to this question looks beyond the fact of secure attachment to a further psychological capacity, our capacity for empathy: secure attachment promotes susceptibility to empathy, and an appropriate susceptibility to empathy is a condition of basic moral competence. The chapter proposes that the deeper and more persisting significance of empathy to morality can be understood from a developmental perspective. Looking to mentalization-based attachment theory allows us to understand how empathic mirroring enters into our earliest intimate, interactions with other persons, securing our default commitment to recognizing their reality as bound up with our own. In this way, empathy constitutes one of the natural foundations on which the more complex architecture of moral experience is constructed. Attachment theory helps us to understand the indispensable role empathy plays at the beginning of the circuitous road to virtue.

Integrated Care for Older People Screening Tool for Measuring Intrinsic Capacity: Preliminary Findings From ICOPE Pilot in China

Objectives: The World Health Organization (WHO) proposed the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) screening tool to identify older people with priority conditions associated with declines in intrinsic capacity (IC). We aimed to determine the clinical utility of the WHO ICOPE screening tool in a Chinese population.Method: A total of 376 adults aged 68.65 ± 11.41 years participated in the study. IC was assessed with the WHO ICOPE screening tool, covering five domains: cognitive, locomotor, sensory, vision, and psychological capacity. We assessed the activities of daily living (ADL); instrumental activities of daily living (IADL); the Fried frailty phenotype; FRAIL scale; Strength, Assistance With Walking, Rising From chair, Climbing Stairs, and Falls (SARC-F) scale; Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE); Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS); social frailty; and quality of life.Results: There were 260 (69.1%) participants who showed declines in one or more IC dimensions. The percentages of decline in mobility, cognition, vitality, hearing, vision, and psychological capacity were 25.3, 46.8, 16.2, 15.4, 11.7, and 12.0%, respectively. IC decreased with increasing age. After adjusting for age, sex, and multimorbidity, participants with declines in IC were more likely to be older, frail, and disabled. They also had worse physical, mental, and overall health. There was a higher prevalence of declines in IC in participants with frailty. After adjusting for age, IC was positively correlated with walking speed, resilience score, and MMSE score and negatively correlated with frailty, SARC-F score, IADL score, GDS score, and physical and mental fatigue. The IC score was not associated with body composition variables such as fat-free mass, body fat percentage, or visceral fat area. Higher IC was associated with better quality of life. The area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC) for the ICOPE screening tool vs. Fried phenotype, FRAIL, ADL disability, IADL disability, and SARC-F were 0.817, 0.843, 0.954, 0.912, and 0.909, respectively.Conclusion: Our research affirms that the ICOPE screening tool is useful to identify adults with poor physical and mental function in a Chinese sample. This tool may assist in identifying declines in IC in an integrative care model and help slow down function decline and onset of care dependence.

Evaluation of Building Construction-Induced Noise and Vibration Impact on Residents

Environmental noise and vibration induced by building construction are increasingly prominent in daily life. If the noise and vibration level exceeds the corresponding standard limits stipulated by the country, humans’ normal life, working, or studying efficiency would be interfered. This paper aims to explore how residents respond to noise and vibration mainly induced by the building construction. The noise and vibration measurements, as well as a questionnaire survey, were conducted. Through analysis and comparisons, it is shown that the noise impacts were concentrated in the area near the construction site. For the noise and vibration transmission within the building, the noise levels were amplified in the lower floors and gradually attenuated with floors, and the vibration levels decayed with the floors. The noise impact was much greater than the vibration impact. Building construction was found to be one of the most annoying noise and vibration sources, while the subway operation has little impact on residents according to either subjective or objective evaluation. The ratio of noise and vibration dissatisfaction was less than that of annoyance, which demonstrated that the residents’ psychological capacity was high toward the impact of noise and vibration. The proposed dose-response relationship can apply in a similar community environment. Once the noise levels within the building obtained, the residents’ noise annoyance can then be estimated.

Kant’s Aesthetics and the Problem of Happiness

Kant’s anthropological lectures introduce scepticism about our psychological capacity to experience happiness conceived as gratification or contentment. Aesthetic experience is in a position to inform an alternative conception of happiness that not only is more adequate to the idea of happiness than either gratification or contentment but also may more easily conform to the moral law’s constraints than gratification. As an ‘ideal feeling’, pleasure in beauty serves as a model for how best to enjoy even sensual pleasures and otherwise ‘private’ sensations. In the end, the third Critique suggests that this alternative conception is more ‘appropriate’ to humankind (§60, 5: 355).

Becoming of Use as an Analyst: Imagining Something that was Never there Before

Every analysis that becomes generative must be an original experience, in both senses of the word: an experience that reaches into the origins of the emotional life of the analysand and one that creates something entirely new. If the analysis goes well enough, these efforts lead the analysand to feel the oldness and newness to be an integrated whole. Analysands who have experienced an absence of intimate emotional connection early in life especially require that new psychological capacity be developed from their germinal potential as a means by which the psychoanalytic process is brought to life. In such cases, both analyst and analysand are required to find ways to expand their receptivity to sensory experience and to cultivate their imaginative capacities in a manner that make emotional growth possible. Through this process words become embodied and better able to articulate the analysand’s self-experience and to create the experience of reciprocity with the analyst and with others in ways never before experienced.

Integrated care for older people (ICOPE): from guidelines to demonstrating feasibility

The World Health Organization (WHO) Global strategy and action plan on ageing and health (1) provides a policy framework to align health systems to the diverse needs of older populations. It promotes person-centred care that strengthen older peoples’ intrinsic capacity (physical and mental capacity) and ability to function where they live, a shift away from specialized medical treatment for each disease or condition. With its endorsement in 2016, WHO Member States recognized a pressing need to develop integrated, community-based approaches to prevent declines in intrinsic capacity. To operationalize ‘intrinsic capacity (IC)’, domains closely associated with care dependency were proposed: mobility, cognition, psychological capacity (depressive symptoms), vitality (malnutrition), and sensory capacity (hearing and vision) (2).

Context of the author’s view (Henri Barbusse, Erich Maria Remarue, Oles Gonchar)

The article is devoted to the research of the context of the author’s view in the architectonics of antiwar novels of the mentioned authors. The signs of a real military type, which appeared in the time on the pages of the humanities in the aspect of rationalism and individualism, are found out. The essence of the “lost generation” is characterised in philosophical, historical and aesthetic aspects. It is proved that the artistic system of anti-war novels is characterized by the dominant way of introducing the author’s view of the story. Aspects such as the author’s attitude to war disasters, the epic tone of the story, the aesthetic concept of the artist, his sociological, historical and psychological views are analysed. The objective-historical point of view, according to which narration extended the boundaries of space, created the background of time, overcame the static of the narrative, deepened the principle of mimesis, is investigated. The peculiarities of the authors’ artistic systems and some of their creative principles, the subjective interpretation of the feelings of the characters have been found out. The skill of each artist in reproducing the inner world of the characters under the influence of the bloody events of the war is outlined. The key words of novels, which serve as generalized forms of imaginative consciousness, as well as their influences on the artistic and psychological nature of the works, are characterised. The functioning of the author’s language of anti-war novels and the peculiarity of oral and written and professional language are traced. The stable correlation of the analysed novels with the most actual problems of the socio-psychological atmosphere of a specific historical era is studied. The originality of the writers’ literary world is revealed, the originality of their thinking is emphasized and the dominant typological similarities and differences are characterised. In studying the structure of the analysed novels, the peculiarity of the conciseness of the collective portraits, in which all the emotional and psychological capacity of each component is reproduced, is traced. It is emphasised that the context of the author’s view also manifests itself through various extravagant elements (authorial indentations, descriptions of exteriors, titles, epigraphs, etc.), which along with the story aspect of the novels give them artistic completeness and integrity. In addition, the specifics of the author’s language of anti-war novels are studied.