The Present State of Existential Interventions Within Palliative Care

Existential psychotherapy is rooted in the European tradition of existential philosophy. Existential philosophers include Husserl and Heidegger, who were German, and Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty, who were French. Their works contain existentially ultimate themes such as death, freedom, meaninglessness, and isolation. Based on their knowledge of existential philosophy, Binswanger, Frankl, and Boss developed the earlier existential psychotherapies such as Dasein-analysis and Logotherapy, while May, Laing, Yalom, May, and Wong started later existential psychotherapies in the British and American culture. Focusing on patients with advanced cancer and/or terminal care, we found nine types of existential psychotherapies which were investigated using randomized controlled trials (RCTs): Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy (MCGP), Individual Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (IMCP), Meaning-Making intervention (MMi), Meaning of Life Intervention, Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM), Hope Intervention, Cognitive and Existential Intervention, Dignity Therapy, and Life-Review Interviews, from 19 relevant RCTs. All deal with death, meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom. Particularly, MCGP, IMCP, MMi, Meaning of Life intervention, and CALM emphasize finding and/or making meaning in the individual's life. The effects on existential or spiritual well-being were confirmed in MCGP, IMCP, Meaning of Life intervention, and Life-Review intervention although the number of studies were very few. In the other interventions, there were heterogenous findings and again the number of studies was very small. Further studies are required to investigate the effects of existential psychotherapy on patients with advanced cancer.

K. JASPERS: THE TRANSCENDENT SOURCE AND OPENNESS OF HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

Статья сфокусирована на рассмотрении трактовки исторического опыта в экзистенциальной философии К. Ясперса. В ее формате представлен анализ этим автором основных предпосылок конституирования исторического опыта в онтологическом и эпистемологическом измерениях. Показана подчеркиваемая им дуальная противоположность необъективируемых экзистенциальных оснований формирования исторического опыта и его онтического содержания, сопряженного с существованием человека в конструируемом им мире, обладающем синхронным и диахронным измерением. Исторический опыт рассматривается Ясперсом как возникающий в коммуникации, складывающейся в интерсубъективном пространстве, а также в измерении контакта человеческого субъекта и непостижимого абсолютного начала мира. Подробно анализируется герменевтический подход Ясперса к интерпретации смысла всемирной истории в свете опыта ее постижения. Рассматривая в надконфессиональной перспективе опыт истории как содержащий в себе момент рождения философской веры в эпоху осевого времени, Ясперс предложил собственное понимание идеи истории как ориентированной на видение ее цели в перспективе движения к объединению человечества. Перспективизм его позиции вырисовывается в понимании открытости и нонфинитности прочтения смысла исторического опыта в горизонте настоящего. The article is focused on the interpretation of historical experience in K. Jaspers’s existential philosophy. In its format, the basic prerequisites for the constitution of historical experience in ontological and epistemological dimensions are analyzed. The dual opposite of the non-explicable existential foundations of the formation of historical experience and its ontic content, referring to the presence of a person in the world with its synchronous and diachronic dimension, is revealed. Historical experience is considered by Jaspers as arising in communication that takes place in intersubjective space, as well as in the dimension of contact between a human subject and the incomprehensible absolute foundation of the world. His hermeneutic approach to the interpretation of the meaning of world history in the light of the experience of its comprehension is analyzed in detail. Considering the historical experience in a supra-confessional perspective as containing the moment of the birth of philosophical faith in the axial time epoch, Jaspers proposed his own understanding of the idea of history as focused on the vision of its goal in the perspective of the movement towards the unification of mankind. The perspectivism of his approach finds expression in the understanding of openness and non-finiteness of reading the meaning of historical experience in the horizon of the present.

Anti-Racism and Existential Philosophy

Kathryn Sophia Belle’s (formerly Kathryn T. Gines’) publications engaged in this interview:2003 (Fanon/Sartre 50 yrs) “Sartre and Fanon Fifty Years Later: To Retain or Reject the Concept of Race,” Sartre Studies International, Vol. 9, Issue 2 (2003): 55-67, https://doi.org/10.3167/135715503781800213.2010 (Convergences) “Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy” in Convergences: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy, pages 35-51. Eds. Maria Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, Donna Dale Marcano. New York: SUNY, 2010.2011 (Wright/Legacy) “The Man Who Lived Underground: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Philosophical Legacy of Richard Wright,” Sartre Studies International, Vol. 17, Issue 2 (2011): 42-59, https://doi.org/10.3167/ssi.2011.170204.2012 (Reflections) “Reflections on the Legacy and Future of Continental Philosophy with Regard to Critical Philosophy of Race,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 50, Issue 2 (June 2012): 329-344, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2012.00109.x.

POSSIBILITIES OF EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICE

The problems of modern psychology are immense, and there are many different directions, methods, approaches. All of them actively represent themselves both in the professional and public sphere, which is a positive thing, but you should think about the internal essence of mass psychological content. Psychology asks questions about processes, about changes in the mental, but not about what the mental is and, most importantly, it does not ask questions about the conscious. This is addressed by existentially oriented philosophy the use of which in physiological practice seems necessary and meaningful.

The Last Day of creation. M. Naimy’s mystical manifesto

The article is devoted to the mystical manifesto The Last Day (1963) of the Lebanese novelist, playwright and journalist Mikhail Naimy (1889–1988). The author suggests that Naimy, under the spell of classical Russian literature, attempted an audacious experiment: by successfully combining the totality of concepts of Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man [ Son smeshnogo cheloveka] with the traditional mythologemes of Sufi poetry, this graduate of the Poltava theological seminary overcomes mystical imagery, and in doing so postulates human impotence in the face of the Nietzschean ‘eternal recurrence’ and the ineffable nature of true the ophanies. The article demonstrates the innovative character of The Last Day, a novel that stands apart from the works of other Pen League members: while Gibran’s The Prophet seeks to infantilise a religious myth, Naimy’s objective is to bring mythology back into the 20th-c. Middle Eastern literary discourse and reimagine it using the categories of contemporary existential philosophy. The study opens with a short biography, covering Naimy’s Russian and American periods.

Existentialism and Theology. United route

The present paper concentrates on analyzing the types of existential philosophy, its current condition, aims, and perspectives of this process in the history of philosophy. The main task of the work was to prove and show the unity of this tradition, despite the artificial divisions and the unjustified disengagements in its “application”. The idea is substantiated that the concept of fundamental intention stands out as a unifying meaning. Research evidence that existential philosophy demonstrates an essential unity with theological thought. The key to this understanding is the doctrine of theological existentialism.

THE ANALYSIS OF SARTRE’S ‘ESENSE’ AND ‘SUBJECTIVITY’ IN DISNEY PIXAR’S SOUL ANIMATION

<p>From the start, the philosophical movement that came to be known as existentialism was associated with literature. This possibility happens because there is a natural affinity between existential philosophy and narrative forms of art. On one hand, existentialist concur on the primacy of individual existence, of the lived experience of concrete human beings. On the other hand, cinematic narratives tell stories of beings such as ourselves, helping us to make sense of our existence and opening up probabilities that we might never have pondered otherwise (Shaw, 2017). Interestingly, Time.com stated that Pixar films are the philosophical of the animation world. Here lies the reason why the writer decided to analyze the portrayal of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous phrase ‘Existence Precedes Essence’ in the latest Disney Pixar animation, Soul. Sartre argued that for human beings, our existence precedes our essence. In addition, Sartre’s notion of ‘existence’ characterized in terms of consciousness, free choice and ‘subjectivity’. For Sartre, the first act of consciousness is to choose. This study shows that Disney Pixar’sSoul does portray Sartre’s ‘existence precedes essence’ through Joe’s life – human beings have no fixed preordained essence or definition. Moreover, Sartre’s idea of consciousness or subjectivity can be seen from 22’s decision to be dared to live.</p>

Paul Ricoeur on the Recognition of Anxiety: Phenomenological Hermeneutics in Action

The philosophical concept of anxiety, which is usually associated with Kierkegaard and Heidegger's existential philosophy, seems to be an underestimated notion in Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological hermeneutics, while its role is important - anxiety appears to serve as the grounding for hope in his hermeneutics of self. The article aims to show how the anxiety is explained in Ricoeur's philosophy through attention and recognition, and how the anxiety is reflected in the narrative forms, or descriptions of vivencia . These descriptions may be seen as the verbal explanation of the so-called affective niche or affective scaffolding , which is a form of cultural adaptation, attempting to interpret and comprehend one's state of mind and way of the perception of the world as such in the given moment. The research and further dialogue based on these narrations may become an important source to recover from anxiety disorder, by discovering its existential meaning and, at the same time, accepting personal responsibility for it. Ricoeur's phenomenological hermeneutics made an important theoretical contribution in understanding the essential aspects of anxiety and hope; but it also developed prolific methods of interpretation, that could be practically applied in health care and psychotherapy; these can be shown on the example of the psychotherapeutic method of the usage of so-called 'anxiety protocols', which aim to arrange the hermeneutical co-research to help patient/client to recognize and overcome its anxiety disorders.

Historicity as a Principle of Interpretation of Analytics of Human Being in Philosophy of M. Heidegger

Analysis of the state and possible options for the development of modern humanities gives the grounds to assert the growing importance of the idea of historicity in culture and philosophy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. In this regard, both the disclosure of the concept of historicity and the substantiation of the significance of the principle of historicity, both for the methodology of historical and philosophical knowledge and for humanitarian knowledge in general become relevant. The author of this article carries out historical and philosophical reconstruction of historical issues in the philosophy of M. Heidegger and reveals the process of converting the idea of historicity into the principle of German existentialism. It is concluded that with the help of historicity M. Heidegger was able to present his own version of phenomenology on an existential basis. Seeing an existential achievement in historicity, M. Heidegger understood by it the direction of existence to the source, tradition, on the basis of this, the intentionality of consciousness was revealed as an essential property of existence: the direction of man as a finite being to its source, which allowed the German philosopher to interpret historicity as a tradition, the existential source of man, and how the temporality of human existence. The author of this article concludes that in the philosophy of M. Heidegger historicity was transformed from an idea into a principle on the basis of which the German philosopher revealed not only the historicity of Dasein, building a fundamental ontology and hermeneutics of factuality, but also tried to solve the problem of the history of being, going beyond the existential philosophy.

Multi-Addressee Nature of Works Intentionally Aimed at a Young Audience – an Opportunity or a Threat? In the Context of Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska’s “Philosophical and Translational Migrations in the Moomin Valley” (2019)

The article is based on the review of the book by Hanna Dymel-Trzebiatowska Philosophical and Translational Migrations in the Moomin Valley (2019). Interdisciplinary considerations concern the issue of the multi-addressee nature of works intentionally aimed at a young audience, and their basis is the analysis and interpretation of Tove Jansson’s series on Moomins, deeply rooted in philosophical contexts. In the interpretation of the saga of the Finnish writer, Dymel-Trzebiatowska refers to various aspects of the theory and practice of reception as well as to selected issues belonging to the area of theory and practice of translation. In interpretative contexts, the researcher also distinguishes psychoanalytical critique, cognitive poetics, existential philosophy, the broadly understood philosophy of ethics and childhood anthropology, thanks to which her book fits perfectly into contemporary discussions on the function, place, role and status of children’s literature, its meaning in the wider cultural circuit literary and – potentially – also its presence in the field of Polish studies.