Philosophy Commons^™

Ketamine And Depression: A Review, Wesley C. Ryan, Cole J. Marta, Ralph J. Koek

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Ketamine, via intravenous infusions, has emerged as a novel therapy for treatment-resistant depression, given rapid onset and demonstrable efficacy in both unipolar and bipolar depression. Duration of benefit, on the order of days, varies between these subtypes, but appears longer in unipolar depression. A unique property is reduction in suicidality although data are more limited. Strategies to extend duration, via multiple doses, maintenance treatment, or subsequent augmenting medications have yielded mixed results. There is a relative paucity of data regarding alternate methods of administration such as intramuscular, intranasal, and oral routes, though preliminary results are promising. Adverse effects most reliably …

Making Ketamine Work In The Long Run, Terrence S. Early

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Treatments such as ketamine psychotherapy face substantial financial and regulatory obstacles to dissemination into widespread use. Newly patented medications are able to generate enough capital to pay for studies required for FDA approval, personnel to apply for coverage on insurance plans, and marketing to establish a successful launch. Ketamine is an older drug with considerable evidence of efficacy for treatment resistant depression, and almost 50 years of data concerning safety as an anesthetic agent. However, it can no longer be patented, so there is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to help get it into widespread use. In this paper we …

Ethnographic Accounts Of Ketamine Explorations In Psychedelic Culture, Kenneth Ring, Ralph Metzner, Philip E. Wolfson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Off-label use of ketamine as a mind-altering substance did not begin in the laboratory, but in the psychedelic culture that grew out of the 1960s counterculture movement. Whatever the risks and limitations of such experimentation, without them the remarkable therapeutic effects of the drug might well have gone unnoticed, and unresearched. The following personal accounts—both inspiring and cautionary—offer glimpses into the cultural contexts that found ketamine to be much more than a reliable anesthetic.

Psychedelic Experiential Pharmacology: Pioneering Clinical Explorations With Salvador Roquet (How I Came To All Of This: Ketamine, Admixtures And Adjuvants, Don Juan And Carlos Castaneda Too): An Interview With Richard Yensen, Philip E. Wolfson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Richard Yensen was a research fellow at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center from 1972 to 1976. He studied psychedelic psychotherapy with Stanislav Grof, M.D. and other senior staff. During this time he treated patients with substance abuse disorders, cancer, neurosis, and other health professionals seeking a training experience. Dr. Yensen did his Ph.D. dissertation on the use of MDA in psychotherapy with neurotic outpatients and conducted his research at the MPRC. Through many years of experience in governmentsanctioned psychedelic research, he has evolved a non-drug shamanistic psychotherapy called Perceptual Affective Therapy. In the 1990’s Richard was co-holder of IND 3250, …

The Transformative Power Of Ketamine: Psychedelic States And A Personal History Of Transformation, Philip E. Wolfson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A discussion of the nature of transformation and its relationship to psychedelic experiences— particularly ketamine experiences—is presented and discussed along with a schema for thinking about types of states that may be encountered and transformations that may occur related to psychedelic use and practice. This is followed by a longitudinal historical approach for portraying and examining personal transformation along with a proposed instrument— The Transformational Codex—for cataloging that history and the elements that compose it.

Regarding The Transpersonal Nature Of Ketamine Therapy: An Approach To The Work, Jeffrey Becker

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Recent evidence has shown that ketamine treatment can facilitate psychological insight and symptom resolution in various psychiatric disorders. To aid this process, psychotherapeutic support should be considered a fundamental aspect of treatment. The psychedelic experience produced by ketamine can be a deeply meaningful source of enduring change and personal growth. The author has repeatedly observed a rapid realignment of self-perception away from shame, fear, and dread toward authentic self-acceptance and gratitude, offering patients opportunity for insight and the consideration of new potentialities. The experience produced by ketamine is similar in quality to transpersonal experiences described by Jung and induced by …

The Imperative For Diversity In A Transpersonal Psychology Of The Whole Person (Editor's Introduction), Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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Ketamine (Im) Assisted Psychotherapy (Kap): A Model For Informed Consent, Philip E. Wolfson

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Informed consent is important for every medical intervention, and the unique nature of ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) calls for a particularly thoughtful and detailed informed consent document. The following is an informed consent form developed for the author’s use in his own private practice. No representations are made concerning its adequacy or appropriateness for use by other practitioners, or in any other contexts; author, editors, and publisher disclaim liability for any use of or reliance on this document. However, as a document created by a psychiatrist with experience in KAP, this form may serve to illustrate the range of issues …

Ketamine Psychedelic Psychotherapy: Focus On Its Pharmacology, Phenomenology, And Clinical Applications, Eli Kolp, Harris L. Friedman, Evgeny Krupitsky, Karl Jansen, Mark Sylvester, M. Scott Young, Anna Kolp

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Meant to be an authoritative guide for psychiatrists and others interested in understanding and applying ketamine psychedelic psychotherapy (KPP), this paper focuses on its pharmacology, phenomenology, and clinical applications. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic widely used by physicians and veterinarians in the United States. In addition to its anesthetic and dissociative properties, ketamine also has a multitude of other psychological and pharmacological properties, which include analgesic, sedative, neuroprotective, anxiolytic, antidepressant, stimulant, euphoriant, and hallucinogenic effects. The literature on the clinical application of KPP is comprehensively reviewed, practical advice for using KPP is given, and the pharmacology and phenomenology of ketamine-induced …

Philosophy And Theology: End Of Life Questions, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Morality And Nonviolent Protest: The Birmingham Campaign, Lindsey A. Mahn

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Birmingham, Alabama was a racially segregated city up until 1963 when members of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began a movement to stop discrimination against the African American population. Though the movement itself was conducted in a peaceful nonviolent manner, opposition from the white civic authorities was often cruel and bloody. Images of protesters both young and old were projected across the news and made the American people think deeply about the problems within their country. Eventually, the protests paid off and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, facilities, transportation and the workplace. …

Professed Values, Constructive Interpretation, And Political History: Comments On Sotirios Barber, The Fallacies Of States' Rights, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

Our barely functioning Congress seems to embody the issues that this conference on constitutional dysfunction is meant to address. At this moment, however, congressional disarray may result less from institutional design than from our lasting heritage of white supremacy. Republican control of the House owes much to the party's Southern Strategy, which has exploited widespread dissatisfaction with the Democrats' official renunciation of racial stratification. That challenge to the American Way is exacerbated by the idea, outrageous to some, of a black President. That context has some bearing on this Symposium's topic of federalism. For, as Professor Larry Yackle reminds us, …

Indeterminism In Kane’S Event-Causal Libertarianism, Robert J. Nowell

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

In this paper, I examine the plausibility of event-causal libertarianism, a prominent view on free will which regards indeterminism in the causal history of a decision as necessary for an agent’s moral responsibility for a subsequent action. Specifically, I investigate how Robert Kane’s event-causal libertarian account fares in light of Derk Pereboom’s powerful “disappearing agent” objection, in addition to criticisms of my own. Kane concludes that Pereboom’s objection is ineffective against his account. I argue against Kane’s conclusion by highlighting a dilemma which results from Kane's response to the disappearing agent objection; either way Kane’s position is interpreted, his account …

The Fair And Laissez-Faire Markets: From A Neoliberal Laissez-Faire Baseline To A Fair Market, Eric L. Dixon

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The essay begins with a brief overview of the role of the neoliberal conception of the laissez-faire market in modern political economy. The essay then goes on to defend three claims: 1) the laissez-faire version of a market should not be considered the economic ideal or baseline version of a market because often the fundamental conditions required to reach a genuine equilibrium are unfulfilled under a laissez-faire environment, 2) a distribution resultant from a laissez-faire market should not be considered the ultima facie just distributive baseline because an unregulated market may allocate commodities according to morally arbitrary factors and requires …

To Each His Own Reality: How The Analysis Of Artistic Exchanges In Cold War Europe Challenges Categories, Mathilde Arnoux

Artl@s Bulletin

How to reconstruct artistic relationships among four European countries, situated on both sides of the Iron Curtain, during the period that commenced post-Stalin and lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall? This is one of the questions that faces the research program To Each His Own Reality: The notion of the real in the art of France, West Germany, East Germany and Poland between 1960 and 1989, which was initiated in January 2011. The paper discusses syntheses of the questions that the research team is facing, descriptions of its methodology, an analysis of preliminary results and what they allow …

Review Of Animal Rights Without Liberation: Applied Ethics And Human Obligations, Mark Suchyta

Between the Species

This submission is a book review for Alasdair Cochrane's Animal Rights Without Liberation: Applied Ethics and Human Obligations

La Recuperación Del Sujeto A Través De Los Personajes Femeninos En Tres Novelas Españolas Contemporáneas Escritas Por Mujeres, Paloma Pérez Valdés

Conference Papers

Mi presentación analiza la recuperación del sujeto en tres novelas españolas contemporáneas escritas por mujeres, Queda la noche de Soledad Puértolas, Azul de Rosa Regàs y Nubosidad variable de Carmen Martín Gaite. Debido a las prácticas modernistas en las que se presenta la esencia de un ser cuyos rasgos ya no aparecen como persistentes sino como cambiantes nace el personaje moderno y a continuación la tan cuestionada muerte del sujeto. Desde entonces han sido muchos los intentos de recuperación del sujeto y de alguna manera se han agotado las vías. No obstante, en la literatura contemporánea española se observan nuevas …

Humanesis By David Cecchetto, Max Ritts

The Goose

Review of Humanesis by David Cecchetto.

Consideration Of The Church's Identity And Mission, Predicated On The Church Be-Ing 'Ligamen' (Bond), C. A. Chase

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church, in Gaudium et spes, declared to the world: this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds (GS 1). Shifting her identity from being one in opposition to the modern world, she announced the possibility of becoming the very bond (ligamen) binding diverse human communities and nations of the world, whilst existing as a function, a light, an energy (GS 42). Framed against the classical understanding of ecclesia as a perfect society, and the fact that this was no longer realistic in …

A Defence Of Epistemic Consequentialism, Jeffrey Dunn

Philosophy Faculty publications

Epistemic consequentialists maintain that the epistemically right (e.g., the justified) is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to the epistemic good (e.g., true belief). Given the wide variety of epistemological approaches that assume some form of epistemic consequentialism, and the controversies surrounding consequentialism in ethics, it is surprising that epistemic consequentialism remains largely uncontested. However, in a recent paper, Selim Berker has provided arguments that allegedly lead to a ‘rejection’ of epistemic consequentialism. In the present paper, it is shown that reliabilism—the most prominent form of epistemic consequentialism, and one of Berker's main targets—survives Berker's arguments unscathed.

“Splitting Stars And Splitting Wood”: Address To New Members Of Phi Beta Kappa (Theta Of Minnesota), May 3, 2011, Erica Stonestreet

Headwaters

In recent years, there has been a widespread perception that liberal arts education in general, and humanities education in particular, are gradually being eroded away in the face of tightening budgets and an ever-growing emphasis on the practicality of education. If you’re going to college, after all, you’re supposed to end up with a so-called "good" job. And what better guarantee of a "good" job than a major in business or science, right?

Whether or not the perception about the decline of the liberal arts actually stands up to scrutiny, I tell my prospective philosophy majors when they come to …

“The Mysterious Stranger”: Address To New Members Of Phi Beta Kappa (Theta Of Minnesota), April 23, 2013, Scott Richardson

Headwaters

I used to know everything. Then I went to college. As I was about to enter college, I was pretty sure I had the world figured out. I didn’t need and certainly didn’t want my professors to do anything but reconfirm my beliefs, values, and vision of the world. I was in for a real surprise. There’s nothing innocent or comforting about a liberal arts education.

In Search Of The Artist: The Influences Of Commercial Interest On An Art School - A Narrative Analysis, Michael Leonard Sette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study will investigate how identities and roles of the artist converge with competing identities and roles fostered at the institutional level within an art college as revealed through the marketing literature that they produce to attract students and business partnerships. The sociological focus for this proposal is the tension between art as a creative expressive endeavor and art as a commodity that has entered into social transactions unintended by the original expression of the artist. The researcher documents and describes (via narrative analysis) how an art school negotiates competing relationships between the pressures to teach and promote art …

Does End Of Life Terminology Influence Decisional Conflict In Surrogate Decision Makers?, Dawn Fairlie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated the relationship between end of life terminologies and decisional conflict in surrogate decision makers using a convenience sample of 234 adults age 50 and older at active adult communities, and senior centers in New Jersey. Participants were randomized into two groups, and each received a vignette that was personalized. The vignettes varied only in the use of the words "Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)" and "Allow Natural Death (AND)". The Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS) was administered.

There was no difference in total DCS score based on AND and DNR versions. However, AND respondents perceived their decision as a …

At The Threshold: Edgard Varese, Modernism, And The Experience Of Modernity, Robert Jackson Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The writings of composer Edgard Varese have long been celebrated for their often ecstatic, optimistic proclamations about the future of music. With manifesto-like brio, they put forth a vision of radically new instruments and sounds, delineate the parameters for spatially oriented composition, and initiate the discourse of what would become electronic music. Yet just as important for understanding Varese is the other side of the coin: a thematics of failure concerning the music of the present--a failure of old instruments to transcend their limitations, a failure of technique to achieve certain compositional ideals, and a failure of music to connect …

Agreeable Despair: Modernism And Melancholy, Derrick James Gentry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study considers a group of distinctly modernist philosophers for whom aesthetic and reflective practices represented a way out of the paralysis of a culture dominated by narrowly conceived philosophical values. These modernist philosophers, I argue, helped to give birth to mode of experimental writing that Robert Musil called "essayism." I begin in Chapter One with an account of Walter Benjamin's experimental concept of melancholy and its intersection with the avant-garde practices of French Surrealism. Chapter One begins to contrast Benjamin's concept of melancholy with Friedrich Nietzsche's therapeutic efforts to transform and overcome melancholy on both a personal and a …

The Moral Philosophy Of William Wollaston, Yael Sofaer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides the first thorough exposition of the moral theory proposed by William Wollaston in his treatise The Religion of Nature Delineated (1724), and demonstrates it to be an innovative contribution to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries' project of developing a moral theory by reason alone (in which lie the origins of contemporary moral realism); with the foundational principle of acting in accordance with nature as the standard of morality. Wollaston's treatise contains an unrecognized innovation: the principle that rational agents express propositions by their actions--that, as propositions, have truth values--which makes it possible to determine the moral status …

Evolution And Ethics, Franklin Roy Bennett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Does evolution inform the ancient debate about the roles that instinct (emotion/passion/sentiment/feeling) and reason do and/or should play in how we decide what to do? Evolutionary ethicists typically adopt Darwinism as a suitable explanation for evolution, and on that basis draw conclusions about moral epistemology. However, if Darwinism is to be offered as a premise from which conclusions about moral epistemology are drawn, in order to assess such arguments we must assess that premise. This reveals the highly speculative and metaphysical quality of our theoretical explanations for how evolution happens. Clarifying that helps to facilitate an assessment of the epistemological …

Moral Motivation And The Authority Of Morality: A Defense Of Naturalist Moral Realism, Lily Eva Frank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Moral realism has been continuously accused of positing the existence of queer properties, facts, judgments, and beliefs. One of these queer features is supposed to be the normative force of morality-that is the way in which morality guides our actions. Critics of moral realism argue that nothing else in the world has this feature. This is a reason to doubt that moral facts and properties exist at all. This objection can be interpreted in at least two ways. One way to interpret it has to do with moral motivation, this is the internalism objection. The other has to do with …

Speech Act Theoretic Semantics, Daniel W. Harris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I defend the view that linguistic meaning is a relation borne by an expression to a type of speech act, and that this relation holds in virtue of our overlapping communicative dispositions, and not in virtue of linguistic conventions. I argue that this theory gives the right account of the semantics-pragmatics interface and the best-available semantics for non-declarative clauses, and show that it allows for the construction of a rigorous compositional semantic theory with greater explanatory power than both truth-conditional and dynamic semantics.