bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reconstructing Women’s History in Antiquity
Authors: Kraemer Ross S.
Published: October 2019

This chapter analyzes the practical and theoretical challenges to writing women’s history, particularly for the period in which Christianity begins. It explores problems of definition and the conjunction of the terms “history,” “women,” and “Christian.” It surveys the surviving data, including literary sources composed by women (or not), literary sources composed by men, documentary evidence, inscriptions, and legal materials, with an eye to both ancient women’s history in general and early Christian women specifically. The chapter concludes that, in spite of the enormous challenges, to abandon the effort to do this work is ethically problematic, in that it reproduces, reauthorizes, and reinscribes the exclusion of women from historical memory.
Hellenistic Philosophy and Literature
Authors: Fredrickson David E.
Published: October 2019

This chapter situates New Testament writings about women, men, and sex within the ancient conflict between philosophers and poets over erotic desire. While philosophers thought desire could be tamed by subordinating it to the system of household management (oikonomia), poets wrote of its unavoidably “limb-loosening” and “melting” effects. Reflecting the philosophers’ construction of gender, the ideal male according to Ephesians, the Pastoral Epistles, and 1 Peter is self-controlled, and women are thought to be by nature insatiable in dress, speech, and sex. Echoing poetry’s fear of and attraction to eros with its power to cast its victims into liminal spaces, the Paul of the genuine letters both challenges philosophy’s binary construction of gender and repeats it.
Roman Imperial Culture
Authors: Lopez Davina C.
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses several aspects of Roman imperial culture that offer resonances with the study of the New Testament. Herein several gendered and sexualized tropes of Roman imperial ideology, which serve to discursively naturalize power relationships and differences in hierarchy, are considered. These include the impenetrable manliness of the Roman emperor, the link between military conquest and sexual violence and feminization of conquered barbarian “others,” and the characterization of the Roman Empire as an endlessly fertile family. Special attention is given to the rhetorical and representational dimensions of Roman imperial culture, and particular emphasis is afforded to visual representation. Finally, the article considers several areas wherein the intersection of gender, sexuality, Roman imperial culture, and the study of the New Testament might further be explored.
Mary, the Mother of Jesus
Authors: Foskett Mary F.
Published: October 2019

The history of the interpretation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the New Testament reflects the shifting questions and expanding methods that have shaped the field of biblical studies. As historical criticism has led to or been supplemented by feminist, gender, and contextual modes of analysis, the interpretation of Mary has brought matters pertaining to gender and sexuality increasingly to light. Mary’s footprint in the New Testament has been, of course, greatly outpaced by her role in Christian imagination. Whether querying the meaning and significance of Mary’s virginity or her portrayal as a mother, at stake in her interpretation is the construction of gender and sexuality itself.
Sophia
Authors: Cahana-Blum Jonathan
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses how convictions about gender and sexuality (both at the divine and at the social level) have been instrumental to the ways early Christians addressed the divine Sophia myth. Strongly gendered and idealized already in the Hebrew Bible, the personified feminine Sophia undergoes a process of masculinization and further idealization in Jewish writings of the Second Temple Period. Somewhat paradoxically, this appears to culminate in her (almost) complete effacement from the New Testament or her replacement with the masculine Logos. Yet in Christian gnostic writings of the second century, Sophia returns with a vengeance: more feminine than ever, by now she is both more powerful than the God of the Hebrew Bible and no longer idealized as an unequivocally positive figure. It is argued that with a careful application of feminist critique, a more thorough understanding of the Sophia myth and its possible theological implications can be reached.
Marriage, Adultery, and Divorce
Authors: Knust Jennifer W.
Published: October 2019

As an institution, marriage legislates and enforces the dissemination and protection of property, sorting between the categories “legitimate” and “illegitimate.” Instructions regarding marriage, adultery, and divorce in various New Testament books confirm these general insights; though a majority of the writers recommend celibacy and singleness over the formation of households, the role of marriage in distributing property, cementing genealogical connections, and promoting honor and status was taken for granted. Conversant with contemporary marriage customs as well as with Septuagint metaphors and legal proscriptions, the New Testament writers presented their teachings on marriage, adultery, and divorce as distinctive and yet traditional. Even so, their presentations of Jesus’s teachings and God’s purposes did not necessarily agree. New Testament books reveal a lively internal discussion about the implications of faith in Jesus for household arrangements, inheritance rights, sexual practices, and kinship.
Celibacy and Virginity
Authors: Lipsett B. Diane
Published: October 2019

Several of the earliest Christian texts about celibacy and virginity introduce a kind of instability with respect to their social application. If marriage, sexual relations, and reproduction are renounced, even by some, unclear consequences emerge for the insistently patriarchal social norms of antiquity and for social relations within communities of believers in Jesus. Exhortations to renunciation also raise questions about sexual practice itself: what is it about sex that makes some abjure it? They also provoke new ways of envisioning and theologizing the body, gender, and sexual difference. In the earliest Christian texts, as in an array of ancient Greco-Roman texts that help contextualize and refine analysis of the Christian writings, “virgin” and “celibate” may be at once or alternately designations of embodied states, terms for social roles and choices, or evocative figures of speech bearing surplus associations.
Violence
Authors: Stratton Kimberly B.
Published: October 2019

Violence nestles cozily and intimately at the very heart of the Christian story. From the execution of a Jewish man named Jesus through the Pauline letters, passion narratives, and martyrologies, violence appears at the crux of what came to define Christianity for many in the ancient world, and plays a central role in soteriological ideas that distinguished Christianity from neighboring belief systems at a very early date. This story of violence is intimately connected to one of power and empire, collective identity, and narrative. As so many scholars have shown, it is also embedded in discourses of gender—concerns about the relationship between gender, power, and authority weave themselves through early Christian writings, both canonical and extracanonical. This chapter interrogates the associations and implications of violence and gender in what came to be regarded as early Christian writings, including some that were eventually rejected as heretical by the imperially sanctioned church.
Prostitution
Authors: Daniel-Hughes Carly
Published: October 2019

This chapter shows how slavery informed the social realities of and rhetoric about prostitution and prostitutes, which informed the negative representation of female prostitutes in early Christian sources. Following Paul’s rhetoric, many Christians used sexual virtue to legitimatize themselves and bolster their triumphalist claims over others in the Roman Empire. To this end, they employed the degraded and debased female prostitute as a powerful symbolic figure as that which stood outside communal boundaries or as a threat that could undermine boundaries from within. In so doing, they marginalized prostitutes and enslaved persons, who could not, by virtue of their enslavement, sustain the sexual ethics that early Christians were promoting. The chapter concludes with debates about contemporary sex workers, arguing that it is critical for feminist historians to resist the rhetoric of the early Christian texts, which obscure the presence of prostitutes (and vulnerable slaves) in ancient Christ-believing communities.
“She Did That!”
Authors: Smith Shanell T.
Published: October 2019

Women in the ancient world have been presented by biblical writers and understood by later interpreters as either “good” or “bad” depending on how well they followed patriarchal rule. Women who claimed their own autonomy and made decisions that benefited themselves or their loved ones, despite patriarchal hegemony, were viewed as “stepping out of their place.” However, this claiming of full personhood, of rejecting or resisting male superiority should be understood as female agency. This article examines, reimagines, and celebrates female agency in New Testament texts from a womanist perspective and encourages contemporary interpreters to do the same.
Same-Sex Relations
Authors: Dunning Benjamin H.
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores the issue of same-sex relations and the New Testament. It begins by surveying sexual protocols in the Roman world and situating the topic in broader biblical context. It then analyzes Romans 1:18–32, focusing especially on different scholarly approaches to this vexed and difficult text. Through a critical engagement with the work of Kyle Harper, the chapter attempts to surface and consolidate a set of interrelated interpretive issues that, so it argues, must necessarily attend any exegesis of Romans 1:18–32 that seeks to interpret the text within the larger history of sexuality. These include (1) the negotiation of continuity and difference; (2) the question of Paul’s silences; (3) the role of Judaism; and 4) the problem of the active partner.
Queer Theory
Authors: Moore Stephen D.
Published: October 2019

Since the 1990s, queer theory has been immensely influential in the humanities, and, to a lesser extent, in the social sciences, seeping into discipline after discipline, even disciplines as well insulated as biblical studies. Queer theory is most commonly understood to be the poststructuralist analysis of sex and sexuality, heterosexuality as well as homosexuality. But as queer theory developed, it frequently decoupled from sex and sexuality, its expanded object of analysis becoming normality as such, in its manifold manifestations. This essay begins with a detailed account of the origins of queer theory: its “precursors,” its “exemplars,” and its relations to queer activism. The essay then charts the queer turn in biblical studies, especially New Testament studies, which also began in the 1990s, and traces such work down to the present, commenting both appreciatively and critically on the various paths it has taken. The final section of the essay brings the tale of extrabiblical queer theory fully up to date and reflects on the largely untapped potential for biblical studies of its more recent developments.
Jewish Women’s Life and Practice in the World of the New Testament
Authors: Ilan Tal
Published: October 2019

The women of the New Testament were Jewish women, and for historians of the period their mention and status in the New Testament constitutes the missing link between the way women are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and their changed status in rabbinic literature (Mishnah and Talmud). In this chapter, I examine how they fit into the Jewish concepts of womanhood. I examine various recognized categories that are relevant for gender research such as patriarchy, public and private space, law, politics, and religion. In each case I show how these affected Jewish women, and how the picture that emerges from the New Testament fits these categories.
Adaptation in an Uncertain World—Detection and Attribution of Climate Change Trends and Extreme Possibilities
Authors: Li Xiyue , Yohe Gary
Published: October 2019

This chapter offers results from an artificial simulation exercise that was designed to answer three fundamental questions that lie at the heart of anticipatory adaptation. First, how can confidence in projected vulnerabilities and impacts be greater than the confidence in attributing what has heretofore been observed? Second, are there characteristics of recent historical data series that do or do not portend our achieving high confidence in attribution to climate change in support of framing adaptation decisions in an uncertain future? And finally, what can analysis of confidence in attribution tell us about ranges of “not-implausible” extreme futures vis-à-vis projections based at least implicitly on an assumption that the climate system is static? An extension of the IPCC method of assessing our confidence in attribution to anthropogenic sources of detected warming presents an answer to the first question. It is also possible to identify characteristics that support an affirmative answer to the second. Finally, this chapter offer some insight into the significance of our attribution methodology in informing attempts to frame considerations of potential extremes and how to respond.
Culture, Parenting Practices, and Moral Development
Authors: Miller Joan G. , Wice Matthew , Goyal Namrata
Published: October 2019

This chapter offers a critical overview of parenting practices and socialization in cultural context. Consideration is given to theory and research on the development of moral emotions, including guilt, shame, and empathy, as well as to cultural variation in the nature of parenting styles and their consequences for child development. Drawing implications for theories of motivation, cultural variation is also analyzed in the legitimacy that children accord to different styles of parental regulation. In conclusion, an argument is made regarding the need to culturally broaden psychological theories of parenting and morality, and to work toward formulating parenting interventions that are more culturally sensitive and effective in realizing culturally variable goals. Challenges are also addressed regarding ways to better understand cultural variation in parenting practices while avoiding the pitfalls of either an extreme relativism or extreme universalism.
Parenting and the Prosocial Behaviors of Children Across Cultures
Authors: de Guzman Maria Rosario T. , Garcia Aileen S. , Padasas Irene O. , Landoy Bernice Vania N.
Published: October 2019

A large body of empirical work has shown the role that parenting plays in the development of prosocial behaviors of children. Parenting styles (e.g., democratic versus authoritarian) and parenting practices (e.g., inductive discipline versus guilt-shame induction) in particular have been empirically linked to prosocial behaviors as well as numerous other well-being indicators in children. What is less understood is the role that culture and cultural context might play in the parenting-prosocial nexus. This chapter explores the contributions of culture comparative and in-depth cultural studies of parenting and children’s prosocial behaviors. These studies extend the range of variability of parenting dimensions and contexts as they relate to children’s prosocial outcomes – providing a means of testing the generalizability of theory in a wider range of settings, as well as in identifying facets of parenting and family life that may otherwise be neglected in current scholarship. Collectively, studies support traditional socialization theories and show how numerous parenting dimensions are linked to prosocial outcomes in children in several cultural communities. Nonetheless, emerging research suggests culturally embedded processes that impact upon the parenting and prosocial link - meriting closer attention for future scholarship.
Development of Prosocial Behavior in Spanish Adolescents and Its Relations to Parenting Styles
Authors: Mestre María Vicenta , Malonda Elisabeth , Samper Paula , Llorca Anna , Tur-Porcar Ana
Published: October 2019

The goal of this chapter is to describe how parenting relates to prosocial development in Spanish adolescents. Although not a lot of work has been done on Spanish youth, the work that has been done has largely paralleled the work done on European American youth. We present evidence from a longitudinal study that examines how support and communication, psychological control, and permissiveness from both mothers and fathers change across adolescence and relate to prosocial behavior in a large sample of Spanish adolescents. Adolescent prosocial behavior was relatively stable. Both mothers and fathers became more permissive and supportive across adolescence, but less psychologically controlling. Prosocial behavior was bidirectionally related to aspects of parenting across time. We highlight the ways in which these findings are both similar to and different from the work in other cultures.
Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Conversations About Volunteering
Authors: Lewis Mary B. Eberly , Franz Scott
Published: October 2019

Mothers and fathers are socialization agents who contribute to youth volunteerism in many ways, including the discussions they have with their adolescents about volunteering. This chapter presents a grounded theory analysis of the processes by which mothers and adolescents select, reflect on, and integrate personal meaning from their participation in volunteerism, community service, and civic engagement through discourse. Mothers and adolescents were asked to talk about reasons for and against particular activities. Emergent themes revealed other-oriented and self-oriented benefits as reasons to volunteer, while concerns about the setting, task, and self were expressed as reasons against volunteering. These themes were embedded within conversational patterns that were found to distinguish between adolescents with strong moral convictions versus weak moral convictions.
Proactive Parenting and Moral Development
Authors: Padilla-Walker Laura M. , Son Daye
Published: October 2019

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the role of proactive parenting (i.e., parenting in anticipation of a child’s behavior) as it relates to the socialization of morality in children and adolescents. In an effort to synthesize across different fields of research, the chapter assesses parental communication and monitoring using three strategies of proactive parenting: cocooning, pre-arming, and deference. Specifically, proactive parent-child communication about ethnic discrimination and about sexuality is explored. Parental monitoring (or management of a child’s peer and media use) is also explored. Across these topics, we synthesized research exploring patterns of proactive parenting and their associations with various moral outcomes, such as prosocial behavior, civic engagement, and aggression. In addition, future directions for research are presented, including distinctions between proactive and reactive parenting, examination of proactive parenting in relation to other established parenting constructs, inclusion of diverse samples, and more nuanced approaches to studying moral development.
Parental Discipline Practices Associated With Preventing Children’s Aggressive and Immoral Behavior
Authors: Lansford Jennifer E.
Published: October 2019

This chapter examines the links between three forms of parental control (helicopter parenting, behavioral control, psychological control) and child moral development during emerging adulthood. It focuses on parental discipline, including inductive reasoning, as one way that parents accomplish the goals of preventing aggression and promoting prosocial behavior. First, a systematic review of the limited literature is provided to illustrate a negative link between these three related yet unique types of controlling parenting and child adjustment outcomes (e.g., psychological, behavioral, moral). Next, given the lack of research on the topic, results of a series of exploratory analyses are presented that reveal associations between parental control and various aspects of emerging adults’ moral development. The findings are generally consistent with previous research in that parental control during emerging adulthood was found to be negatively related with child moral outcomes, including moral cognitions, emotions, and behavior. Finally, future directions for research are discussed that point to the need for further examination of helicopter parenting and its measures, related aspects of parenting, and moral outcomes.
Moral Formation in the Family
Authors: Lapsley Daniel
Published: October 2019

Several lessons are drawn for future research on parenting and moral formation on the basis of an historical perspective on the moral development research program. One is that sociomoral formation is a special case of personality development that draws attention to the role of attachment, event representations, autobiographical memory, and temperament for organizing dispositional coherence around morality. A second is that research on moral development in the family will be increasingly informed by study of the moral self of infancy and on the importance of early life rearing experience, widely discussed in disparate literatures from object relations to epigenetics. A third line of research might focus on parenting characteristics “beyond parenting style” to include parents’ ideological and faith commitments, their mindsets with respect to children’s personality and capacity for change, and their own sense of generativity.
Genetics, Parenting, and Moral Development
Authors: Vertsberger Dana , Israel Salomon , Knafo-Noam Ariel
Published: October 2019

This chapter reviews findings regarding genetic and parental influences on moral development, and is organized according to three morally relevant components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The cognitive component refers to the conceptualization of right and wrong, and specifically moral reasoning and values. The affective component refers to feelings related to reactions to social situations and evaluations of chosen actions, focusing on emotions such as empathy, guilt, and pride. The behavioral component refers to the way individuals choose to behave, and specifically to prosocial behavior. We review relevant quantitative and molecular genetic designs, and particularly four neurobiological systems: the dopaminergic system, the oxytocinergic and vasopressinergic systems, and the serotonergic system, which have been found to be associated with moral development. In addition, we review parents’ influences on moral development, in the context of gene-environment interactions and correlations.
Plato’s Ways Of Writing
Authors: McCabe Mary Margaret
Published: October 2019

Almost all of Plato’s writings come in the form of a dialogue. Some are dramatic, others merely formalized discussion (compare the Phaedo and the Statesman); some are in direct speech, others narrated (compare the Gorgias and the Symposium); some seem to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, whereas others begin, or end, in the middle of things (compare the Euthydemus and the Philebus). This chapter argues that one cannot properly make sense of what Plato does if one ignores the effect on the arguments of dramatic context, allusion, characterization—indeed, of all the aspects of the style and drama of a dialogue. This effect is felt both particularly (where the dramatic detail alters radically how individual arguments are understood) and generally (where various strategies render the reader carefully reflective on what is said). The philosophical content of a dialogue is to be found, at least, in the dialogue as a whole. How Plato writes, therefore, is indivisible from what he is trying to say.
The Philebus
Authors: Meinwald Constance C.
Published: October 2019

The Philebus discusses the good human life and the claims of pleasure on the one hand, and a broad cognitive cluster containing understanding, intelligence, and right opinion on the other in connection with that life. Plato includes extended treatment of metaphysics and methodology: this is his typical supplement to the procedure of his own Socratic dialogues, which considered human questions in isolation from other issues. However, the text as a whole is hard to grasp. It is not clear why the discussion develops as it does and how all this is supposed to work together. This chapter begins by discussing the characters and setting of the dialogue, and then provides an overview of the discussion. Next, it provides the author’s own interpretation of the metaphysics and method passages, and takes Plato’s cue to use these as a basis from which to approach the discussions of pleasure and reason.
The Epistemology and Metaphysics of Socrates
Authors: Matthews Gareth B.
Published: October 2019

The portrayal of Socrates in the early dialogues of Plato is the most vivid picture of any ancient philosopher. Prominent in that depiction is the story Socrates tells in the Apology about his reaction to being told that, according to the oracle at Delphi, no one was wiser than he (21a). It is a memorably coherent portrait of a philosopher whose views deserve careful interpretation, analysis, and criticism. This chapter discusses the epistemology and metaphysics, if any, of the figure that emerges from that portrait. In discussing the epistemology of Socrates, it focuses on these three topics: Socratic Ignorance, the Priority of Definitional Knowledge, and the Problem of the Elenchus.
Socratic Ethics and Moral Psychology
Authors: Devereux Daniel
Published: October 2019

This chapter considers the following question: If Plato is our main source of knowledge about Socrates, how can we tell when Plato’s “Socrates” speaks for Socrates and when he speaks for Plato? Among the 30 or so dialogues traditionally attributed to Plato, there is a group of 11 or 12 that share certain features setting them apart from the rest. In these dialogues, which are considerably shorter than the others, Socrates always has the role of questioner. Many scholars agree that these shorter dialogues were intended to portray the characteristic views and arguments of the historical Socrates; for this reason, these dialogues are also called “Socratic.” In fact, a number of scholars believe that these dialogues contain a Socratic “theory” of the virtues: a unified, systematic account of their nature and value. According to this view, one of Plato’s intentions in writing these dialogues was to set out this systematic account of the virtues, and to defend it with arguments used by Socrates. However, there are problems with this view. The chapter suggests that while these dialogues are “Socratic” in the sense that they focus on the views and style of discussion of the historical Socrates, they were not intended to give a unified Socratic theory of the virtues—for the good reason that Socrates in all likelihood did not have a unified theory of the virtues.
Plato’s Epistemology
Authors: Taylor C. C. W.
Published: October 2019

This chapter examines Plato’s views on knowledge. The constant themes in his dialogues are as follows. The first is that knowledge is systematic. Over specific areas, such as mathematics and morality, and even conceivably for reality as a whole, items of knowledge are systematically interconnected, and it is the task of inquiry in those areas to reveal those connections. The second is that for any department of knowledge (and, conceivably, for reality as a whole), the primary knowledge is knowledge of what things are. Given the metaphysical theory of Forms as the basic things that there are, Forms are the primary objects of inquiry. Changes in (or uncertainties about) that theory are reflected in corresponding changes in Plato’s views (or uncertainties) about knowledge. The third is that knowledge of what things are is achieved a priori, by critical reflection. Empirical investigation has at best a secondary role in the achievement of knowledge. These themes may be summed up as the doctrine that the aim of inquiry is to achieve systematic understanding of the intelligible principles of reality.
The Meno
Authors: Judson Lindsay
Published: October 2019

This chapter examines various aspects of two central themes of the Meno, how knowledge (epistēmē) is related to true belief, and how it is acquired. This chapter argues that the Meno’s definition of knowledge as true belief ‘tied down with a reasoning out of the cause’, is best understood as a characterisation of a form of knowledge constituted by understanding, rather than by justified true belief. It argues that the best way to construe Meno’s paradox as a serious threat to the possibility of acquiring knowledge is to take it to be concerned with inquiry as the search for understanding something for oneself. The chapter advances a new version of the unjustly neglected interpretation of Plato’s response as principally cast in terms of recollection and recognition, as against the dominant interpretation, which sees it as principally cast in terms of the use of true beliefs as the way to knowledge. In the last section the chapter considers knowledge and true belief in the final part of the Meno, arguing that what Socrates says about their relationship here cannot be reconciled with his earlier account: this confirms the view that the arguments of the final section are not intended to be taken at face value.
Plato on the Soul
Authors: Lorenz Hendrik
Published: October 2019

Plato’s central contribution to psychology is his theory of the tripartite soul. This is at once a theory about the nature of the embodied human soul and a theory of human motivation. Its implied theory of motivation was accepted with little or no modification by Aristotle. It remained influential into the later ancient period and beyond, not only among Platonists but also in the Aristotelian tradition. The theory is introduced and put to extensive use in the Republic. This chapter focuses on the Republic, whose psychological theory is discussed in considerable detail in Section 4. It begins by discussing the Protagoras (Section 1), the Gorgias (Section 2), and the Phaedo (Section 3), insofar as speakers in those dialogues express views about human motivation or about the nature of the soul.
Plato’s Ethics
Authors: Annas Julia
Published: October 2019

This chapter discusses Plato’s ethics. Plato’s ethical thinking is found throughout the dialogues, from those in which Socrates shows other people that they fail to understand the claims they make about courage, friendship, or virtue to those in which he, or another person, gives long, sometimes uninterrupted speeches on a variety of topics. Ethics is treated sometimes on its own, sometimes in political contexts, and sometimes in a framework of metaphysical theorizing. Thus, when examining Plato’s ethical arguments, it is important to pay attention to their role in the dialogue in which they occur. Nonetheless, it is legitimate to extract ethics, as a subject, from the dialogues and to outline a Platonic theory of it. Differing as they do between dialogues, his discussions of ethical concerns do fall into patterns which can be brought together and seen to have a distinctive structure. The chapter first looks at his theoretical answer to the question about virtue and happiness. It then examines the way he discusses virtue, followed by an exploration of his positions on pleasure. It concludes by looking at the relation of Plato’s ethics to his political and his metaphysical thought.
Plato’s Politics
Authors: Bobonich Christopher
Published: October 2019

The dialogues that are most obviously important for Plato’s political philosophy include: the Apology, the Crito, the Gorgias, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. Further, there are many questions of political philosophy that Plato discusses in his dialogues. These topics include, among others: (1) the ultimate ends of the city’s laws and institutions; (2) who should rule, the forms of constitution, and their ranking; (3) what institutions and offices there should be; (4) the nature and extent of citizens’ obligation to obey the laws; (5) the proper criterion of citizenship; (6) the political and social status of women; (7) the purposes of punishment; (8) private property; and (9) slavery. This chapter attempts to provide an overall picture of Plato’s political philosophy, focusing on three moments: the “Socratic” dialogues, including the Apology and the Crito; the great middle-period work, the Republic, along with the Phaedo; and finally, two works from Plato’s last period, the Statesman and the Laws.
Plato on Education and Art
Authors: Kamtekar Rachana
Published: October 2019

Plato’s philosophy of education and art begins (in the Apology, Protagoras, and Gorgias) with reflection on the differences between the sophists’ and Socrates’s methods of engaging would-be students, and turns to an account of what these methods presuppose about the nature of the soul that is to be educated (in the Republic). Developments in Plato’s educational proposals throughout the dialogues (from the early dialogues to the Republic, and then the Republic to the Laws, Timaeus, and Phaedrus) go hand in hand with developments in his way of conceiving of the nature of the soul—both its capabilities and its limitations.
The Platonic Corpus
Authors: Irwin T. H.
Published: October 2019

This chapter describes the Platonic corpus. The Platonic corpus is unusual among the works of Greek authors in that it is considered complete. Most, but not all, the works in the Corpus are dialogues. The Apology purports to be Socrates’ defence at his trial. The Menexenus is a funeral speech. The ninth tetralogy ends with 13 letters under Plato’s name. The Definitions is a list of definitions of philosophical terms. The remaining works, including the ones listed as “Spurious,” are usually called “dialogues” because they contain philosophical conversations between more or less sharply characterized individuals. The Corpus is found in the manuscripts of Plato, produced in the ninth century ad and later. In the 1,300 years between the lifetime of Plato and the production of our manuscripts, a canon of Plato’s works was formed, someone tried to distinguish genuine from spurious works, and the works were arranged in a fixed tetralogical order. The chapter covers the order of the dialogues, questions about the order of the dialogues, performance and publication, the dialogues and Plato’s philosophy, early editions and arrangements of the Corpus, and the manuscripts.
Goal Dysregulation in Depression, Mania, and Schizophrenia
Authors: Johnson Sheri L. , Sanchez Amy H. , Carver Charles S.
Published: October 2019

This chapter addresses goal dysregulation in the mood disorders and schizophrenia. A large body of basic research has considered goal regulation mechanisms that support the pursuit of reward. This chapter outlines some components of goal regulation, their relevance for emotion, and some ways in which goal regulation can go awry. It begins by providing an overview of normative goal regulation processes and how these relate to emotion. Then, we discuss models and evidence concerning goal dysregulation across psychopathologies (depression, mania, and schizophrenia). The chapter concludes with a discussion of clinical implications of this work, unaddressed issues, and future directions.
Positive Emotion-Based Impulsivity as a Transdiagnostic Endophenotype
Authors: Um Miji , Cyders Melissa A.
Published: October 2019

Positive emotion-based impulsivity (i.e., positive urgency) is an important impulsivity-related trait associated with a wide range of problematic behaviors and clinical disorders, including substance use, alcohol dependence, pathological gambling, risky sexual behaviors, and non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors, among others. Since its identification in 2007, research has begun to better appreciate how positive emotions bias decision-making and can lead to many of the same negative outcomes that for years were primarily believed to be connected with negative emotional states. However, much still remains to be uncovered about positive urgency, including (a) how best to assess such tendencies without the limitations of self-report biases, (b) how positive urgency imparts risk in specific clinical samples, (c) which mechanisms underlie how positive urgency imparts risk, and (d) how best to intervene on or prevent positive emotion–based risky behaviors. This chapter reviews the accumulating empirical evidence for positive urgency, presents potential mechanisms for how it might affect risk-taking and clinical problems, and discusses many limitations in the current understanding that have thus far made it difficult to identify, prevent, and intervene on this tendency. There are, of course, adaptive and maladaptive features to positive emotions. The extent to which these positive emotions increase risk-taking, however, is an endophenotypic marker of mental health risk across a range of clinical disorders. Better understanding of mechanisms underlying this tendency will lead to identification of novel treatment and prevention targets with broad clinical applicability.
Positive Valence System Dysregulation in Psychosis
Authors: Barch Deanna M. , Pagliaccio David , Luking Katherine
Published: October 2019

Motivational and hedonic impairments cut across diagnostic categories, are core aspects of psychopathology, and may be crucial for understanding pathways to development and maintenance of psychopathology. Given the pervasive nature of motivational and hedonic deficits across psychopathology forms, the Research Domain Criteria initiative includes a “positive valence” systems domain that outlines constructs critical for understanding motivational and hedonic impairments in psychopathology. These constructs include initial responsiveness to reward, reward anticipation or expectancy, incentive or reinforcement learning, effort valuation, and action selection. The chapter reviews behavioral and neuroimaging studies providing evidence for construct impairments in in individuals with psychosis versus individuals with depressive pathology. Evidence suggests there are meaningful differences in reward-related and hedonic deficits associated with psychosis versus depression. These differences have implications for understanding the differential etiology of these forms of psychopathology and the ways treatment development may need to proceed for each domain. The literature suggests that individuals with depressive pathology experience impairments of in-the-moment hedonics or “liking,” particularly among those who experience anhedonia. Given that hedonic experience is the basis in many ways for all other aspects of motivational function, such deficits may propagate forward and contribute to impairments in other constructs dependent on hedonic responses. In contrast, individuals with psychosis have relatively intact in-the-moment hedonic processing, instead experiencing impairments in process aspects that translate reward to action selection. More specifically, individuals with schizophrenia exhibit altered reward prediction and associated striatal and prefrontal activation, impaired reward learning, and impaired reward-modulated action selection.
Positive Emotion in Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Authors: Seager Ilana , Mennin Douglas S. , Aldao Amelia
Published: October 2019

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a debilitating condition characterized by excessive, pervasive, uncontrollable, and paralyzing worries about a wide range of future situations. Individuals with this condition frequently find themselves stuck in worry and tension cycles in futile attempts at reducing uncertainty and increasing control. GAD has been associated with substantial impairments in functioning and reduced quality of life. GAD remains poorly understood, and the long-term efficacy and end-state functioning resulting from treatment are weaker compared to other anxiety disorders. Some treatments (e.g., emotion regulation therapy, acceptance-based behavioral therapy) have improved efficacy, partly by targeting emotional dysfunction. Basic psychopathology research has focused on identifying the role of negative affect in GAD, so little is known about how positive affect is experienced and regulated in this disorder. This is particularly important in light of the overlap of this condition with major depressive disorder, which is characterized by low or suppressed positive emotion. Developing such an understanding is essential to further improve the efficacy of emotion-based treatments. This chapter reviews current and future directions in the study of positive affect in GAD. The chapter reviews the nascent research on positive affect and GAD, then illustrates dimensions of future work.
Positive Emotion in Borderline Personality Disorder
Authors: Hooley Jill M. , Masland Sara R.
Published: October 2019

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe form of personality pathology characterized by high levels of negative emotionality. Because negative emotions are so central to the clinical presentation of BPD, the issue of how people with this disorder process and experience positive emotional experiences is relatively unexplored. This chapter provides an overview of what is currently known about positive emotions and BPD. Although the literature is characterized by many inconsistencies, our review suggests that people with BPD do indeed experience positive emotions. However, their recall of positive emotional experiences appears to be reduced, perhaps because such experiences are more transient, less stable, and more likely to be quickly replaced by negative emotions. Problems with the identification and accurate differentiation of positive emotions may also play a role. Such difficulties may conspire to create a psychological world for people with BPD that is characterized by a focus on negative mood and negative emotional experiences. In addition to focusing on negative affect, we suggest that it might also be clinically beneficial to make problems with positive affect a specific clinical target.
Neurobiology of Positive Emotion Disruption in Neurodegenerative Disease
Authors: Sturm Virginia E. , Levenson Robert W.
Published: October 2019

Alterations in emotion are common in neurodegenerative disease. Although often associated with diminished functioning, neurodegeneration of emotion circuits can lead to both losses and gains in a range of emotional functions, including reactivity, regulation, appraisal, and empathy. Most previous research in this area has focused on the impact of neurodegeneration on negative emotions; however, there has recently been increasing interest in the degree to which neurodegenerative diseases may also alter positive emotions. This chapter reviews how different neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease) impact positive emotions and the neural basis of positive emotion alterations. We will also discuss how decreases and increases in positive emotional reactivity can lead to specific behavioral symptoms in neurodegenerative disease and can impact patients’ family members and caregivers.
Transdiagnostic Treatments for Enhancing Positive Affect and Well-Being
Authors: Boettcher Hannah , Sandage Steven , Latin Heather M. , Barlow David H.
Published: October 2019

Recent years have seen increased interest in transdiagnostic interventions, which seek to alleviate psychopathology by targeting mechanisms responsible for its etiology and maintenance across diagnostic categories. These interventions are promising due to being cost and time efficient and applicable to diverse clinical presentations. There is a growing parallel appreciation for the dimensional nature of emotional disorders, including anxiety, depressive, and related disorders in which emotion dysregulation is central. Positive affect and well-being are important, yet often overlooked, in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. This chapter explores transdiagnostic treatments to enhance positive affect and well-being in emotional disorders. One intervention is profiled, the Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP), a transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral treatment targeting neuroticism with a mounting body of evidence for anxiety and related disorders. This chapter highlights ways the UP and other transdiagnostic interventions may enhance positive functioning in emotional disorders. Also explored are the ways in which positive functioning can be enhanced from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on research in the areas of spirituality, religion, and positive psychology. The central thesis proposed in this chapter is that a transdiagnostic approach targeting not only intense negative affect but also positive affect may be particularly helpful in improving quality of life for individuals with deficits across dimensions of well-being. Future directions in this line of research are proposed.
Indices and Correlates of Positive Emotion in Psychopathology
Authors: Dutra Sunny J. , Reddan Marianne , Purcell John R. , Devlin Hillary C. , Welker Keith M.
Published: October 2019

This chapter not only draws from previous authoritative measurement overviews in the general field of emotion, but also advances these resources in several key ways. First, it provides a specific focus on positive valence systems, which have not yet received specific methodological attention. Second, the field of positive emotion (PE) has expanded in recent years with new and innovative methods, making an updated review of methodological tools timely. Third, the chapter incorporates discussion of PE disturbance in clinical populations and the methods best suited to capture PE dysfunctions. This chapter also outlines some tools that can allow researchers to capture a broad array of PE quantified by self-report, behavioral coding, and biological correlates as seen through changes in the central and peripheral nervous system (i.e., brain and body). After reviewing PE measurement methods and correlates, this chapter includes several methods for studying PE beyond the individual level (i.e., interpersonal) and traditional laboratory settings (i.e., ambulatory or experience sampling). It provides key examples of their applications to study PE in clinical populations while acknowledging several of their basic advantages and disadvantages.
Positive and Negative Emotion Goals in Psychopathology
Authors: Millgram Yael , Tamir Maya
Published: October 2019

Some forms of psychopathology involve deficits in emotion regulation. Whereas prior research has focused on identifying maladaptive emotion regulation strategies among people who are diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, this research focuses on identifying maladaptive emotion regulation goals. This chapter discusses preferences for sadness and happiness in clinical depression, a disorder characterized by the prevalence of negative emotions and the paucity of positive emotions. The chapter reviews empirical evidence suggesting that depressed individuals are more likely to direct emotion regulation toward increasing negative emotions rather than decreasing them. Next explored are possible maladaptive emotion regulation goals in other psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder. Finally discussed are the implications of these new ideas for research and practice in psychopathology.