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Retinal microvascular function and incidence and trajectories of clinically relevant depressive symptoms: the Maastricht Study
- April C. E. van Gennip, Monideepa D. Gupta, Alfons J. H. M. Houben, Tos T. J. M. Berendschot, Carroll A. B. Webers, Marleen M. J. van Greevenbroek, Carla J. H. van der Kallen, Annemarie Koster, Anke Wesselius, Simone J. P. M. Eussen, Casper G. Schalkwijk, Bastiaan E. de Galan, Sebastian Köhler, Miranda T. Schram, Coen D. A. Stehouwer, Thomas T. van Sloten
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- Journal:
- Psychological Medicine , First View
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 12 March 2024, pp. 1-10
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Background
Cerebral microvascular dysfunction may contribute to depression via disruption of brain structures involved in mood regulation, but evidence is limited. We investigated the association of retinal microvascular function, a proxy for microvascular function in the brain, with incidence and trajectories of clinically relevant depressive symptoms.
MethodsLongitudinal data are from The Maastricht Study of 5952 participants (59.9 ± 8.5 years/49.7% women) without clinically relevant depressive symptoms at baseline (2010–2017). Central retinal arteriolar equivalent and central retinal venular equivalent (CRAE and CRVE) and a composite score of flicker light-induced retinal arteriolar and venular dilation were assessed at baseline. We assessed incidence and trajectories of clinically relevant depressive symptoms (9-item Patient Health Questionnaire score ⩾10). Trajectories included continuously low prevalence (low, n = 5225 [87.8%]); early increasing, then chronic high prevalence (early-chronic, n = 157 [2.6%]); low, then increasing prevalence (late-increasing, n = 247 [4.2%]); and remitting prevalence (remitting, n = 323 [5.4%]).
ResultsAfter a median follow-up of 7.0 years (range 1.0–11.0), 806 (13.5%) individuals had incident clinically relevant depressive symptoms. After full adjustment, a larger CRAE and CRVE were each associated with a lower risk of clinically relevant depressive symptoms (hazard ratios [HRs] per standard deviation [s.d.]: 0.89 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.83–0.96] and 0.93 [0.86–0.99], respectively), while a lower flicker light-induced retinal dilation was associated with a higher risk of clinically relevant depressive symptoms (HR per s.d.: 1.10 [1.01–1.20]). Compared to the low trajectory, a larger CRAE was associated with lower odds of belonging to the early-chronic trajectory (OR: 0.83 [0.69–0.99]) and a lower flicker light-induced retinal dilation was associated with higher odds of belonging to the remitting trajectory (OR: 1.23 [1.07–1.43]).
ConclusionsThese findings support the hypothesis that cerebral microvascular dysfunction contributes to the development of depressive symptoms.
Evaluating Deformation-Induced Grain Orientation Change in a Polycrystal During In Situ Tensile Deformation using EBSD
- Thomas E. Buchheit, Jay D. Carroll, Blythe G. Clark, Brad L. Boyce
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- Journal:
- Microscopy and Microanalysis / Volume 21 / Issue 4 / August 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 July 2015, pp. 969-984
- Print publication:
- August 2015
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Using an in situ load frame within a scanning electron microscope, a microstructural section on the surface of an annealed tantalum (Ta) polycrystalline specimen was mapped at successive tensile strain intervals, up to ~20% strain, using electron backscatter diffraction. A grain identification and correlation technique was developed for characterizing the evolving microstructure during loading. Presenting the correlated results builds on the reference orientation deviation (ROD) map concept where individual orientation measurements within a grain are compared with a reference orientation associated with that grain. In this case, individual orientation measurements in a deformed grain are measured relative to a reference orientation derived from the undeformed (initial) configuration rather than the current deformed configuration as has been done for previous ROD schemes. Using this technique helps reveal the evolution of crystallographic orientation gradients and development of deformation-induced substructure within grains. Although overall crystallographic texture evolved slowly during deformation, orientation spread within grains developed quickly. In some locations, misorientation relative to the original orientation of a grain exceeded 20° by 15% strain. The largest orientation changes often appeared near grain boundaries suggesting that these regions were preferred locations for the initial development of subgrains.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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Do Children and Adolescents Have Differential Response Rates in Placebo-Controlled Trials of Fluoxetine?
- Taryn L. Mayes, Rongrong Tao, Jeanne W. Rintelmann, Thomas Carmody, Carroll W. Hughes, Beth D. Kennard, Sunita M. Stewart, Graham J. Emslie
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- Journal:
- CNS Spectrums / Volume 12 / Issue 2 / February 2007
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 07 November 2014, pp. 147-154
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Objective:
Recent acute efficacy trials of antidepressants in youth have suggested that high placebo-response rates in children (<12 years of age) indicate that children may be more responsive to non-specific treatment interventions. Yet, these studies generally have not presented age-specific outcome data. The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy outcomes for children (<12 years of age) and adolescents (≥12 years of age) using the combined data from two previously published double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of fluoxetine.
Methods:Children (<12 years of age) and adolescents (≥12 years of age) with major depressive disorder were randomized to fluoxetine or placebo for 8–9 weeks of treatment. Outcome was assessed using the Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) and Clinical Global Impressions scale.
Results:Random regression of the CDRS-R showed a treatment group by age group interaction (F1,338=4.10, P=.044), indicating that the treatment effect was significantly more pronounced in children than adolescents. Within children, response at exit to fluoxetine was significantly better than placebo (56.9% vs 33.3%; P=.009). Adolescent response rates at exit were not significantly different between the groups (51.1% vs 38.6%; P=.128). Remission rates were low for both groups.
Conclusion:In the combined fluoxetine trials, drug-placebo difference was greater in children compared with adolescents. Contrary to expectations, the placebo-response rate was lower in the children than the adolescents.
Contributors
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- By Tod C. Aeby, Melanie D. Altizer, Ronan A. Bakker, Meghann E. Batten, Anita K. Blanchard, Brian Bond, Megan A. Brady, Saweda A. Bright, Ellen L. Brock, Amy Brown, Ashley Carroll, Jori S. Carter, Frances Casey, Weldon Chafe, David Chelmow, Jessica M. Ciaburri, Stephen A. Cohen, Adrianne M. Colton, PonJola Coney, Jennifer A. Cross, Julie Zemaitis DeCesare, Layson L. Denney, Megan L. Evans, Nicole S. Fanning, Tanaz R. Ferzandi, Katie P. Friday, Nancy D. Gaba, Rajiv B. Gala, Andrew Galffy, Adrienne L. Gentry, Edward J. Gill, Philippe Girerd, Meredith Gray, Amy Hempel, Audra Jolyn Hill, Chris J. Hong, Kathryn A. Houston, Patricia S. Huguelet, Warner K. Huh, Jordan Hylton, Christine R. Isaacs, Alison F. Jacoby, Isaiah M. Johnson, Nicole W. Karjane, Emily E. Landers, Susan M. Lanni, Eduardo Lara-Torre, Lee A. Learman, Nikola Alexander Letham, Rachel K. Love, Richard Scott Lucidi, Elisabeth McGaw, Kimberly Woods McMorrow, Christopher A. Manipula, Kirk J. Matthews, Michelle Meglin, Megan Metcalf, Sarah H. Milton, Gaby Moawad, Christopher Morosky, Lindsay H. Morrell, Elizabeth L. Munter, Erin L. Murata, Amanda B. Murchison, Nguyet A. Nguyen, Nan G. O’Connell, Tony Ogburn, K. Nathan Parthasarathy, Thomas C. Peng, Ashley Peterson, Sarah Peterson, John G. Pierce, Amber Price, Heidi J. Purcell, Ronald M. Ramus, Nicole Calloway Rankins, Fidelma B. Rigby, Amanda H. Ritter, Barbara L. Robinson, Danielle Roncari, Lisa Rubinsak, Jennifer Salcedo, Mary T. Sale, Peter F. Schnatz, John W. Seeds, Kathryn Shaia, Karen Shelton, Megan M. Shine, Haller J. Smith, Roger P. Smith, Nancy A. Sokkary, Reni A. Soon, Aparna Sridhar, Lilja Stefansson, Laurie S. Swaim, Chemen M. Tate, Hong-Thao Thieu, Meredith S. Thomas, L. Chesney Thompson, Tiffany Tonismae, Angela M. Tran, Breanna Walker, Alan G. Waxman, C. Nathan Webb, Valerie L. Williams, Sarah B. Wilson, Elizabeth M. Yoselevsky, Amy E. Young
- Edited by David Chelmow, Virginia Commonwealth University, Christine R. Isaacs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Ashley Carroll, Virginia Commonwealth University
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- Acute Care and Emergency Gynecology
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- 05 November 2014
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- 30 October 2014, pp ix-xiv
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Combined catecholamine and indoleamine depletion following response to ECT
- Frederick Cassidy, Richard D. Weiner, Thomas B. Cooper, Bernard J. Carroll
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- The British Journal of Psychiatry / Volume 196 / Issue 6 / June 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 January 2018, pp. 493-494
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- June 2010
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The mechanism of action of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in treating major depression is unknown. We studied two candidate mechanisms through inhibiting simultaneously the synthesis of noradrenaline and serotonin in patients immediately after successful treatment with ECT using a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind crossover design. There were no significant changes in depression scores under any experimental conditions, or between the amine-depleted and placebo groups despite reductions of 61% in serum homovanillic acid, 47% in 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyenylethyleneglycol, and 89% in serum tryptophan. Catecholamine and serotonin availability may not be necessary for maintaining the initial antidepressant response to ECT.
The traditions of fideism
- THOMAS D. CARROLL
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- Religious Studies / Volume 44 / Issue 1 / March 2008
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 11 January 2008, pp. 1-22
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- March 2008
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Philosophers and theologians acknowledge that ‘fideism’ is difficult to define but rarely agree on what the best characterization of the term is. In this article, I investigate the history of use of ‘fideism’ to explore why its meaning has been so contested and thus why it has not always been helpful for resolving philosophical problems. I trace the use of the term from its origins in French theology to its current uses in philosophy and theology, concluding that ‘fideism’ is helpful in resolving philosophical problems only when philosophers scrupulously acknowledge the tradition of use that informs their understanding of the word.
Religions, Reasons and Gods
- Essays in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Religion
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Thomas D. Carroll
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006
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Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern Europe and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity.
Bibliography
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 318-353
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List of abbreviations
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp xix-xx
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Index
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 354-372
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PART II - THEISTIC ARGUMENTS IN PRE-MODERN CONTEXTS
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 99-100
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Summary
Part II offers three exploratory demonstrations of how comparative philosophy of religion might proceed, if oriented by the study of theistic arguments as embedded in religious forms of life. In these chapters Clayton discusses the degrees and kinds of difference that become visible through such comparative historical projects. He also provides examples of pre-modern theistic argument in relation to which the distinctive character of modern uses of such argument might be measured. Chapter 5, ‘Ramanuja, Hume and “Comparative Philosophy”: Remarks on the Sribhasya and the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion’, develops a comparison of Hume and Ramanuja by analysing their theistic arguments with respect to the interpretative communities to which they belonged. Differentiation between the grounds, motives and ends of argument for Ramanuja and Hume provides the philosophical structure through which Clayton historicizes instances of rationality.
Chapter 6, ‘Piety and the Proofs’, continues Clayton's attention to the operations of theistic argument within specific religious traditions and communities, here described as forms of life. In this chapter we see an intensification of interest in the genres within which theistic proofs occur, and the audiences for such genres, topics which receive yet more explicit treatment in Chapter 7, ‘The Otherness of Anselm’, and in Part III. All of the essays in Part II (Chapters 6 and 7 most explicitly) approach the comparative philosophical study of theistic proofs by analysing them within contexts of composition and reception. On Clayton's view, without such contextual analysis one risks making mistaken philosophical claims.
6 - Piety and the proofs
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 133-160
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Summary
Religious piety and proofs of God's existence have not in modern times invariably sat so happily beside one another as the attempted euphony of my title may at first appear to suggest.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the existence and nature of God came to be conceived as a purely philosophical question that could be answered, if at all, without recourse to ‘narrowly religious’ considerations. Philosophers and sympathetic theologians agreed that a religiously independent philosophy is itself competent to demonstrate the Deity's existence and nature by means of formally valid and generally convincing rational proofs.
Motives varied. Some philosophers may have desired that a common rational religion would eventually displace the diverse ‘positive religions’, which – as the then recent religious wars in Europe and the invasion of the Turks from the South had shown – tend toward divisiveness, intolerance and bloodshed. Some Jewish thinkers may have hoped via a confessionally neutral ‘rational theology’ to win an equal place within Europe's intellectual mainstream. And a few Christian theologians may have joined in the ‘Enlightenment project’ – as it has been called – in the belief that ‘natural theology’ itself already contained the best that is in Christianity, whilst others may have been confident that the independent foundation would be sufficient to support a robustly Christian superstructure.
9 - The Enlightenment project and the debate about God in early-modern German philosophy
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 222-244
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Summary
It has become commonplace in recent philosophical discussion in Europe and America to speak, be it approvingly or disapprovingly, of something called the Modern project or the project of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment project. Each of these phrases has its own local appeal and creates its own conceptual problems. Each can be given a certain tone, so that in one voice it can evoke all the aspirations of the human spirit made free from self-imposed chains; in another voice each phrase can evoke a sense of cultural fragmentation and loss of community. If we try, against all the odds, to encapsulate that project in a single paragraph, we could do worse, I think, than propose something like this:
‘The Enlightenment project in its most general form is an attempt to identify and to justify without recourse to outside authority or private passion but by the exercise of reason and the limits of experience alone what we can truly know, what we ought rightly to do and what we may reasonably hope. Public rationality requires us in all our deliberations to achieve neutrality by divesting ourselves of allegiance to any particular standpoint and to achieve universality by abstracting ourselves from all those communities of interest that may limit our perspective. By this means, the sovereign self sets out to lay sound foundations on which to build with reasoned confidence.’
3 - Common ground and defensible difference
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
- Published online:
- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 58-79
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Summary
The vigour with which radically conservative religious movements have gained ground around the world – East and West, North and South – caught the liberal intellectual establishment unprepared. Many consoled themselves at first by insisting that it was a temporary blip and predicted that the corrective forces of secularization would soon reassert themselves and set things back on course in and beyond the West. However, this has not happened. In the mean time, the liberal community has gone on the offensive, warning with uncharacteristic sensationalism against domestic culture wars or global clashes of civilizations if commonality is not maximized. Rawlsians may have soberly realized that citizens of modern democratic societies share less in common than they had once imagined, but they have not abandoned the strategy of seeking out and expanding the possible patches of overlapping consensus that may survive. This typifies the intuitive response of liberalism, both classical and contemporary, to diversity: privatize difference and cultivate common ground as a means of containing the potentially destructive social effects of cultural, especially religious, diversity.
Who indeed could doubt that staking out and tending common ground is the first thing required to overcome difference and to create a common good? Where there are differences of opinion between persons or states or religions, most of us instinctively look to strategies that maximize common ground. The image of common ground evokes public parks and village greens. It is an image full of warmth and reassurance, exuding a sense of community and well being.
Editorial preface
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp ix-xvi
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Summary
The proximate point of origin for this volume is John Clayton's 1992 Stanton Lectures, delivered at the University of Cambridge. Clayton had planned to publish his Stanton Lectures soon thereafter with Cambridge University Press. However, that publication was delayed for a variety of reasons. In 1997 he retired from his position as Professor and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster to become Professor, Chair of Department, and Director of the Graduate Division of Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University. During the late 1990s Clayton focused primarily on the administrative side of his professional work. By 2000, he had returned in earnest to his Stanton Lectures, deciding that Religions, Reasons and Gods: Essays in CrossCultural Philosophy of Religion ought to come to publication as a nearly independent typescript rather than as a lightly revised version of the Stanton Lectures. The gods did not smile on Clayton's plans. In the autumn of 2001 he fell seriously ill with a condition requiring exhausting treatment. One year later, he was diagnosed with a second illness, an aggressive cancer that took his life in September 2003.
Clayton recognized that his ambitious plans for the completion of Religions, Reasons and Gods would not be realized in this context of illhealth and, accordingly, he revised arrangements for the publication of this volume. With the generous support of editors at Cambridge University Press, he specified a collection of essays (some previously published and some unpublished).
5 - Ramanuja, Hume and ‘comparative philosophy’: remarks on the Sribhasya and the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 101-132
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In an article on the current state of Indology, first published in Hochland in the late 1960s, Paul Hacker made a plea for a new kind of philosophizing, one grounded in an immediate knowledge of both Indian and European sources. This quotation was later used as the epithet for the muchrespected book India and Europe by Wilhelm Halbfass, whose work as a whole can be said to have exemplified just that kind of philosophizing.
However dubious one may be that it is ever possible to have immediate knowledge of any text, one cannot but agree that doing philosophy would be greatly enriched by immersion in the main texts of a variety of reflective traditions, including – of course – the reflective traditions of India. Ideally, one would want to be open to more than just the traditions of India and ‘the West’, intricately differentiated though each of them may be in itself. The ideal would be, from intimate knowledge of several traditions, to develop a reflective style that is global and not simply bi-cultural. The ideal, however, is just that – an ideal. It is for most of us hardly possible to master the varieties even of Western and Indian thought in tandem, to discern the points of real (not just apparent) difference and similarity, much less to add to that the full range of other indigenous styles of reflection it would be necessary to master in order to earn a right to philosophize in a global mode or a right to undertake what is now grandly called ‘world philosophy’.
PART I - REASON AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 13-15
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The introductory chapter, ‘Claims, Contexts and Contestability’, ends by suggesting that studying the pre-modern history of theistic proofs may support investigation of the selective and collective instrumentality of argument. Clayton indicates a variety of ways in which theistic proofs may function within intra-traditional, as well as inter-traditional, contexts. This discussion reveals his particular interest in the ways in which intra-traditional uses of theistic proofs may enhance ‘group solidarity’. Moreover, examining this role of the proofs in pre-modern contexts may render it more easily visible at work in modern contexts.
Such remarks provide a crucial frame for the chapters that follow in Part I. Chapter 2, ‘Thomas Jefferson and the Study of Religion’, proceeds on several fronts. Against the view that ‘natural religion’ provides a universal discourse suited to the management of pluralism by virtue of its supra-traditional character, Clayton presents one account of its origins, emphasizing the Protestant Christian character of this ‘universal’ language of religion. He also notes the limited character of difference required to be managed by such language in Jefferson's day. Jeffersonian America's religious parochialism is juxtaposed with the greater religious pluralism of contemporary Britain and America. Here Clayton argues that the disciplinary language of philosophy of religion retains the parochial character of its origins in natural religion discourse and is thus limited in its capacity to communicate among diverse religious communities.
10 - The debate about God in early-modern British philosophy
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 245-291
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INTRODUCTION
My thesis concerning theistic arguments in the modern period is fairly straightforward: disembedded from their traditional contexts, in which they had served mainly tradition-specific ends, they were asked more and more to serve tradition-neutral ends by carrying the full load of justifying the rationality of basic religious claims. This was a job for which they were ill equipped, and they eventually collapsed, surviving only when they did not serve the whims of this ‘disembedded foundationalism’. It is less surprising that they failed to do what they were not equipped to do than that they held up for as long as they did. How do we account for that?
FROM MEDIAEVAL TO MODERN: DAWNING OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN EUROPE
An unclear divide: the mediaeval mentalité and the marks of modernity
Some accounts of modernity apply equally to the thirteenth century and to post-Enlightenment Europe. It is not surprising that some intellectual historians now push the origins of modernity further and further back into what we once with no sense of unease called the ‘Middle Ages’. This unclear divide has led some to say that there is no unique modernity. It is true that we need thoroughly to reassess the intricate links between modern and mediaeval, as well as the similarity between the modern and what used to be called in our anthropological innocence ‘primitive’, but we should not allow ourselves to become blind to the fact that there remains a distinct difference.
7 - The otherness of Anselm
- John Clayton
- Prepared for publication by Anne M. Blackburn, Cornell University, New York, Thomas D. Carroll, Boston University
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- Religions, Reasons and Gods
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- 22 September 2009
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- 25 November 2006, pp 161-180
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Anselm's Proslogion is an obvious resource for anyone wishing to reflect on ‘the otherness of God’. The mediaeval monk's desire to be allowed to know and love and rejoice in the being of his God (§26) was in no way fed by a desire to deny God's otherness. His strategy was rather to confirm what we already believe about God's utter difference by making the divine ‘otherness’ intelligible to the human mind; that is, by making otherness thinkable.
God's way of being is one kind; ours, quite another. For instance, I know that my existence is contingent. I can easily think of myself as not existing. I can imagine a time in the past before I came into being, and I can also imagine a time in the future after I shall cease to be. If I put my mind to it, I can even imagine my never having existed at all.
But that is not the way God is, according to Anselm. Unlike ourselves, God can only be conceived as being without beginning and without end, as being ‘inoriginate’ and ‘imperishable’; that is, as being necessary in one mediaeval sense of that term. In chapter 22 of the Proslogion, Anselm hymns his God:
You are that being who exists truly and simply, because you neither were nor will be but always already are, nor can you be thought not to be at any time. And you are life and light, wisdom and blessedness, eternity and many other such good things, indeed you yourself are nothing other than the one and highest good, entirely sufficient to yourself, needing nothing, but he whom all things need for their being and well-being.