Jean-Paul Sartre

 

 Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the most famous western philosophers has ever been known.Here is a brief review of his biography and then a summary of one of his most populated written ones,Nausea.

Jean-Paul Sartre, (1905-1980) born in Paris in 1905, studied at the École Normale Supérieure from 1924 to 1929 and became Professor of Philosophy at Le Havre in 1931. With the help of a stipend from the Institut Français he studied in Berlin (1932) the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. After further teaching at Le Havre, and then in Laon, he taught at the Lycée Pasteur in Paris from 1937 to 1939. Since the end of the Second World War, Sartre has been living as an independent writer.

Sartre is one of those writers for whom a determined philosophical position is the centre of their artistic being. Although drawn from many sources, for example, Husserl’s idea of a free, fully intentional consciousness and Heidegger’s existentialism, the existentialism Sartre formulated and popularized is profoundly original. Its popularity and that of its author reached a climax in the forties, and Sartre’s theoretical writings as well as his novels and plays constitute one of the main inspirational sources of modern literature. In his philosophical view atheism is taken for granted; the “loss of God” is not mourned. Man is condemned to freedom, a freedom from all authority, which he may seek to evade, distort, and deny but which he will have to face if he is to become a moral being. The meaning of man’s life is not established before his existence. Once the terrible freedom is acknowledged, man has to make this meaning himself, has to commit himself to a role in this world, has to commit his freedom. And this attempt to make oneself is futile without the “solidarity” of others.

The conclusions a writer must draw from this position were set forth in “Qu’est-ce que la littérature?” (What Is Literature?), 1948: literature is no longer an activity for itself, nor primarily descriptive of characters and situations, but is concerned with human freedom and its (and the author’s) commitment. Literature is committed; artistic creation is a moral activity.

While the publication of his early, largely psychological studies, L’Imagination (1936), Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions (Outline of a Theory of the Emotions), 1939, and L’Imaginaire: psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (The Psychology of Imagination), 1940, remained relatively unnoticed, Sartre’s first novel, La Nausée (Nausea), 1938, and the collection of stories Le Mur (The Wall and other Stories), 1938, brought him immediate recognition and success. They dramatically express Sartre’s early existentialist themes of alienation and commitment, and of salvation through art.

His central philosophical work, L’Etre et le néant (Being and Nothingness), 1943, is a massive structuralization of his concept of being, from which much of modern existentialism derives. The existentialist humanism which Sartre propagates in his popular essay L’Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism), 1946, can be glimpsed in the series of novels, Les Chemins de la Liberté (The Roads to Freedom), 1945-49.

Sartre is perhaps best known as a playwright. In Les Mouches (The Flies), 1943, the young killer’s committed freedom is pitted against the powerless Jupiter, while in Huis Clos (No Exit), 1947, hell emerges as the togetherness of people.

Sartre has engaged extensively in literary critisicm and has written studies on Baudelaire (1947) and Jean Genet (1952). A biography of his childhood, Les Mots (The Words), appeared in 1964.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

SARTRE’S SUMMARY OF NAUSEA
After lengthy travels, Antoine Roquentin has settled in Bouville among ferociously good
people. He lives near the railway station in a hotel for traveling salesmen and is writing a thesis in
history about an eighteenth-century adventurer, M. de Rollebon. His work takes him frequently to
the municipal library, where his friend the Autodidact, a humanist, is instructing himself by reading
the books in alphabetical order. In the evening, Roquentin goes and sits at a table in the
Railwaymen’s Café and listens to a record – always the same one – “Some of These Days.” And
sometimes he goes upstairs with the woman who runs the place.
Anny, the women he loves, left four years ago. She always wanted there to be “perfect
moments,” and she constantly exhausted herself in minute and vain attempts to reconstruct the
world around herself. She and Roquentin broke up. Now Roquentin is losing his past drop by drop;
every day he sinks more deeply into a strange and suspicious present. His life itself no longer
makes any sense; he thought he had had great adventures; but there aren’t any adventures, there are
only “stories.” He clings to M. de Rollebon: death is to justify life.
It is then that his real adventure begins – an insinuating, softly horrible metamorphosis of all
his sensations. It is Nausea. It grabs you from behind, and then you drift in a tepid sea of time. Is it
Roquentin who has changed? Is it the world? Walls, gardens, cafes are abruptly overcome by
nausea. Another time he wakes up to a baleful day: something is rotten in the air, the light, people’s
gestures. M. de Rollebon dies a second time: the dead can never justify the living. Roquentin
wanders the streets, voluminous and unjustifiable. And then, on the first day of spring [sic!
February 21], he grasps the meaning of his adventure: Nausea is existence revealing itself – and
existence is not pleasant to see.
Roquentin still clings to a feeble hope: Anny has written to him; he is going to see her
again. But Anny has become a sedentary woman, fat and desperate. She too, in her own way, has
discovered existence. The two of them have nothing more to say to one another.
Roquentin goes back to his solitude at the depths of this enormous Nature that is oozing
suffocation on the town and that he senses will soon be rent by cataclysmic upheavals. What is to
be done? Call to other people for help? But the others are good people: they tip their hats to one
another without knowing they exist. He is going to leave Bouville; he goes to the Railwaymen’s
Café to listen one last time to “Some of These Days,” and while the record is playing, he catches
sight of a chance, a slim chance of accepting himself.
From Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, Les Écrits de Sartre. Chronologie, bibliographie
commentée, Paris, Gallimard, 1970, p. 61, E.T., Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, trans.
Richard C. McCleary, The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Volume 1 “A Bibliographical
Life,” Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974, pp. 52-3.

Again about Golden Globes2009

2009 Golden Globes – Nominees and Winners

Best Motion Picture – Drama
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Winner: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kristin Scott Thomas – I’ve Loved You So Long
Winner: Kate Winslet – Revolutionary Road

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
Leonardo DiCaprio – Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Winner: Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

NEW FINDINGS IN NEUROLOGY

   

 In this randomized controlled trial of patients with advanced PD, deep brain stimulation was more effective than best medical therapy in improving on time without troubling dyskinesias, motor function, and quality of life at 6 months, but was associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events. 

 

 

Recent studies demonstrate an increased teratogenic risk for valproate and a probable increased risk for phenobarbital. Carbamazepine and lamotrigine appear relatively safe; however, results are inconclusive concerning a specific risk for cleft lip/palate for both drugs as well as a dose-dependent effect for malformations associated with lamotrigine. Data regarding teratogenic risks for other antiepileptic drugs are inadequate. Additional studies are needed to delineate further the risks for all antiepileptic drugs and determine the underlying mechanisms.

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

NEW YORK — January 8, 2009 — There is a large increased long-term risk of mortality in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who are prescribed antipsychotic medication, according to the long-term follow-up results of the Dementia Antipsychotic Withdrawal Trial (DART-AD) published early online and in the February edition of The Lancet Neurology.

 

While there is evidence of modest short term benefits of antipsychotic treatment for the neuropsychiatric symptoms of AD, there is also clear evidence of an increase in adverse effects. However, all the data regarding mortality so far relate to short term follow-up of 12 weeks or less.

 

Clive Ballard, MD, Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom, and colleagues have provided the first long-term follow-up data for AD patients given antipsychotic drugs.

 

Between 2001 and 2004, patients with AD aged 67 to 100 years who resided in facilities in 4 UK areas were randomly assigned to continue with their antipsychotic treatment (thioridazine, chlorpromazine, haloperidol, trifluorperazine, or risperidone) for 12 months or to switch their medication to an oral placebo.

 

The primary outcome was mortality at 12 months. An additional follow-up telephone assessment was done to establish whether each participant was still alive 24 months after the enrolment of the last participant (range 24-54 months). Causes of death were obtained from death certificates.

 

In total, 165 patients were randomised and of these, 128 started treatment — 64 on antipsychotics, 64 on placebo. At 12 months, there was 70% survival in the antipsychotic group compared with 77% in placebo.

 

However, longer term follow-up revealed bigger differences in survival. At 2 years, survival was 46% in the antipsychotic group and 71% in the placebo group, and at 36 months the difference was even greater: 30% antipsychotic versus 59% placebo. Overall, across the whole study period, the risk of death was 42% lower in the placebo group than in the antipsychotic group.

 

“Our data add further serious safety concerns about the long-term use of antipsychotics in this population, and clinicians should certainly try to replace antipsychotics with safer management approaches,” the authors wrote.

 

“Several studies have shown that psychological management can replace antipsychotic therapy without any appreciable worsening of neuropsychiatric symptoms; and although cholinesterase inhibitors do not seem to be an effective short-term pharmacological treatment for agitation, there is evidence that memantine or antidepressants such as citalopram might be safer and effective alternatives for some neuropsychiatric symptoms.”

 

“Our opinion is that there is still an important but limited place for atypical antipsychotics in the treatment of severe neuropsychiatric manifestations, particularly aggression, of AD,” they continued. “However, the accumulating safety concerns, including the substantial increase in long-term mortality, emphasise the urgent need to put an end to unnecessary and prolonged prescribing.”

 

SOURCE: The Lancet Neurology

 

Most Babies With Uncomplicated Febrile Seizures Can Avoid Lumbar Puncture

BOSTON — January 6, 2008 — Researchers have found that it is probably not necessary to perform a lumbar puncture in well-appearing children who have had a simple febrile seizure. The findings are published in the January issue of Pediatrics.

 

Current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations, issued in 1996, call on physicians to consider doing a lumbar puncture in children aged 12 to 18 months with a first simple febrile seizure and to ‘strongly’ consider lumbar puncture for infants aged 6 to 12 months.

 

But when Amir Kimia, MD, Division of Emergency Medicine, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues reviewed the medical charts of 704 babies seen at Children’s emergency department for a first simple febrile seizure between October 1995 and October 2006, they found no cases of bacterial meningitis in either age group.

 

Of the 704 babies, 271 (38%) underwent lumbar puncture. Of these, 10 babies (3.8%) were found to have an elevated white-blood-cell count in their cerebrospinal fluid, but no pathogen was identified in cerebrospinal fluid cultures, and no patient was diagnosed as having bacterial meningitis.

 

This is the first large-scale study to focus specifically on babies aged 6 to 18 months. The findings are consistent with those of previous small-scale studies in this young age group and studies that included children up to age 6.

 

However, the researchers caution that their findings don’t necessarily extend to patients with complex febrile seizures, patients with concerning symptoms or signs, or patients who have an underlying illness.

 

“Lumbar puncture should be considered based on clinical presentation, rather than being done routinely,” says Dr. Kimia. “If a child appears very ill, is lethargic, fussy, non-responsive, has neurologic symptoms, or has certain clinical signs, lumbar puncture should be considered no matter how old the child is.”

 

SOURCE: Children’s Hospital Boston

 

 

Deep Brain Stimulation for Patients With Advanced Parkinson Disease Provides Benefits

 

   

 

CHICAGO — January 6, 2009 — Patients with advanced Parkinson disease (PD) who received deep brain stimulation treatment had more improvement in movement skills and quality of life after 6 months than patients who received other medical therapy, but also had a higher risk of a serious adverse events, according to a study in the January 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

 

Frances M. Weaver, PhD, Hines VA Hospital, Hines, Illinois, and colleagues conducted a randomised trial to compare the benefits and risks of deep brain stimulation with those of best medical therapy for patients of a wide age range with PD.

 

A total of 255 patients with PD were enrolled; 25% of whom were aged 70 years or older. The participants were randomised to receive bilateral deep brain stimulation with leads of the stimulation device implanted in the following locations of the brain: subthalamic nucleus (n = 60) or globus pallidus (n = 61); or received best medical therapy (n = 134), which included management by movement disorder neurologists, who monitored medication use, and nonpharmacological therapy.

 

The researchers found that at 6 months, deep brain stimulation patients gained an average of 4.6 hours per day of “on” time without troubling dyskinesia, while the average change for the best medical therapy group was 0 hours.

 

Motor function improved significantly with deep brain stimulation compared with best medical therapy, with 71% of deep brain stimulation patients versus 32% of best medical therapy patients experiencing clinically meaningful motor function improvements at 6 months, while 3% of deep brain stimulation patients and 21% of best medical therapy patients had clinically worsening scores.

 

Compared with patients in the best medical therapy group, patients in the deep brain stimulation group experienced significant improvements in the summary measure of quality of life and on 7 of 8 PD quality-of-life scores. Neurocognitive testing revealed small decrements in some areas of information processing for patients receiving deep brain stimulation versus medical therapy.

 

The overall risk of experiencing a serious adverse event was 3.8 times higher in deep brain stimulation patients than in best medical therapy patients. A total of 49 deep brain stimulation patients (40%) experienced 82 serious adverse events. Of the patients in the best medical therapy group, 15 (11%) experienced 19 serious adverse events. The most common serious adverse event was surgical site infection, with other serious adverse events including nervous system disorders, psychiatric disorders, device-related complications, and cardiac disorders.

 

“The clinical significance of the adverse events and minor neurocognitive changes observed in patients in the deep brain stimulation group and, more importantly, whether patients who undergo deep brain stimulation view improvement in motor function and quality of life as outweighing adverse events, remain to be explored,” the authors wrote.

 

“More detailed analyses of adverse events and neurocognitive functioning following the conclusion of phase 2 of this study will shed light on these issues. Caution should be exercised, however, against overstating or understating the risks of deep brain stimulation for patients with PD. Physicians must continue to weigh the potential short-term and long-term risks with the benefits of deep brain stimulation in each patient.

 

 

Anticipatory Activation in the Amygdala and Anterior Cingulate in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Prediction of Treatment Response;

  These findings of heightened and indiscriminate amygdala responses to anticipatory signals in generalized anxiety disorder and of anterior cingulate cortex associations with treatment response provide neurobiological support for the role of anticipatory processes in the pathophysiology of generalized anxiety disorder

 source:www.docguide.com

Auto-generated: 13 January 2009 05:01

POSTMODERNISM IN SIMPLE WORDS

 

 

What is postmodernism?

 

Postmodernism is not that simple to define because it is a word used in different areas of study:  art, film, architecture, literature, religion, truth, etc.  The term “postmodernism” can best be understood by relating it to modernism.  Modernism came out of the 1800’s of Western Europe with the manifestation of mechanism, industrialism, progress, literature, art, and the ideas that sought to capitalize on what promoted a progressive and prosperous society.  It elevated human reason, human progress, and human authority.

 

Postmodernism, then, is not necessarily a rebellion against modernism (though some postmodernists see it that way), but a movement “after” it, a movement that builds upon it but, more or less, rejects modernism’s strict rationalism.  In contrast to this, postmodernism upholds a subjectivity regarding morality, social constructions, political movements, art, religion, and truth statements.  In other words, to perhaps oversimplify what postmodernism is, it is relativism, the belief that truth is relative, that objective truth may not be knowable.

 

    “Modernism is often pictured as pursuing truth, absolutism, linear thinking, rationalism, certainty, the cerebral as opposed to the effective — which in turn breeds arrogance, and inflexibility, the lust to be right, the desire to control.  Postmodernism, by contrast, recognizes how much of what we ‘know’ is shaped by the culture in which we live, is controlled by emotions and aesthetics and heritage, and in fact can only be intelligently held as part of a common tradition, without overbearing claims to be true or right.”1

 

The danger of postmodernism is that it tends to deny the ability to know things for sure.  It even undermines the construction of language by stating that words can be interpreted differently, that language is fluid, and that the Bible, written in ancient languages, is open to various interpretations of equal validity.  Given this underlying idea that nothing is truly knowable (a self contradictory statement that is no problem for postmoderns), the very foundations of truth both moral and spiritual are suspect and open to re-evaluation — along with the Bible.

 

    * “Spencer Burke of the Ooze (Newport Beach, CA) agrees.  ‘A move away from intellectual Christianity is essential.  We must move to the mystical.'”2

    * “This mystical/poetic approach takes special pains to remember that the Bible itself contains precious little expository prose.”3

 

The postmodern mind

 

The majority of unbelievers today do not have even a basic understanding of biblical principles.  Their worldview is often naturalistic; that is, they perceive and interpret the world in light of natural principles (often evolutionary), combined with relativism in the areas of morals and truth.  The postmodern person says that truth is understood in the context of one’s culture and personal experience and these observations in turn dominate how the world is to be interpreted.  Instead of an objective absolute truth, i.e., God’s revelation, the individual observes and accepts what he considers to be true and false based upon his experiences.  This means that different cultures and different individuals will interpret reality differently.  In other words, what is true for one person may not be true for another.

 

    “Concluding from an earlier Barna study in May, David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group, had noted that most Americans do not have strong and clear beliefs largely because they do not possess a coherent biblical worldview. The study found that fewer Americans were embracing a traditional view of God and the Bible.”4

 

The postmodern person rejects the biblical absolutes that there is an immutable God, that God is sovereign, and that the only way to salvation is through the blood sacrifice of Jesus.  Therefore, the Christian and the postmodern person often do not have sufficient common ground to allow proper dialogue on spiritual matters.

 

The postmodern person might ask if there is any such thing as truth and whether or not truth can be known either experientially or rationally.  The modernist would say, “Of course there is absolute truth!  Asking if truth can be known is an absolute question!”

Postmodernism and the Emergent Church

 

  Generally speaking, those in the Emerging Church movement are aware of the postmodern mindset and admirably seek to adapt evangelistic efforts to accommodate postmodern thinking.  This sometimes means that some Emerging Churches will feature church services and emphasize relationship, community, common traditional values, while using visual methods, storytelling, and more expressive worship instead of absolute truth constructions derived from Scripture and delivered during preaching and teaching.

 

    “Emerging Churches use paintings, slides, drawings, and candles as visual expressions.  In addition, they might show videos or television clips.  On occasion an art installation or exhibit functions as the entire ‘service.'”5

 

We agree that we must reach the culture in a relevant way, a way they are familiar with, but we must also make sure that we do not compromise the revealed word of God and we must not let the revealed truth of God’s Word be subjugated to cultural or personal pressures.

Conclusion

 

To repeat my oversimplification, postmodernism is relativism.  Postmodernism is a reaction against the logical truth structures of modern thought that gave us absolute propositions about nature, time, space, mathematics, knowability, repeatability of experimentation, predictability, etc. As modernism developed the sciences, technology, and medicine, it has helped to produce a comfortable and predictable society — wherein people tend to become complacent, comfortable, and predictable. But there are always people who ask questions rather than blindly follow the status quo.  They look for different ways of expression, different interpretations of truth, teach the idea that truth is not necessarily absolute, and that reality can be reinterpreted.  It is within the postmodern context that the Emerging Churches are seeking to work.

 

It is a difficult venture to try and reach the hearts and minds of those who are less open to absolutes than previous generations.  So, Instead of absolute truth propositions, Emerging Churches tend to focus on relationships, expressiveness, and new ways of trying to reach God.  Is it good?  Yes and no.  It is good only so far as it is consistent with Scripture.  It is bad whenever it deviates from it.

 

 

 

 

______________

 

   1. Carson, D. A., Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 2005, p. 27.

   2. Gibbs, Eddie and Bolger, Ryan K. Emerging Churches, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic), 2005.page 230.

   3. Brian  McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, (Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan), 2004, page 155.

   4. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071204/30332_2007_

      Trends_Analysis:_Americans_Reformulating_Christianity.htm

   5. Gibbs, Eddie and Bolger, Ryan K., ppp 73-74

 

source:http://www.carm.org/emerging/postmodern.htm