Dimensional Ontology Research Articles

Charting the brain networks of impulsivity: Meta-analytic synthesis, functional connectivity modelling, and neurotransmitter associations

Abstract Impulsivity is a multi-dimensional construct that plays a crucial role in human behaviour and is believed to be a transdiagnostic marker of several psychiatric disorders. However, given its multi-faceted nature, investigations of its neural correlates are challenging and systematic comparisons across dimensions are lacking. In this study, we used a comprehensive multi-modal approach to investigate the functional network organisation of two dimensions in which impulsivity manifests: decision-making and response inhibition. Activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses of task-based fMRI studies within each dimension identified two distinct and non-overlapping functional systems. One located in the default-mode network, associated with value-based judgements and goal-directed decision-making, and the other distributed across higher-order networks associated with cognitive control. Resting-state functional connectivity revealed the two systems were organised into four specialised communities of default-mode, cingulo-insular, fronto-parietal, and temporal regions. Finally, given the widespread use of neurotransmitter-acting medication to treat conditions with impulsive symptoms, we investigated the association between this organisation and neurochemistry and found that integration across communities was associated with PET-derived serotonin receptor density. Our findings reinforce insights from previous behavioural research and provide substantial evidence for the multi-dimensional nature of impulsivity on the neural level. This highlights the necessity for a comprehensive dimensional ontology on all levels of investigation to address impulsivity in a transdiagnostic manner.

Searching for Meaning in the Life of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf: A Call to Meaningful Responses to Tragedies.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, born in 1938, is Africa's first elected female head of state. She navigated stressful and traumatic events, including bullying, domestic abuse, persecution, a civil war, witnessing the effects of genocide and navigating a patriarchal system. Nonetheless, Johnson-Sirleaf's determination established her as a global icon who played a significant role in women's empowerment. Johnson-Sirleaf was purposively selected for this study as she is an extraordinary female political leader. Frankl's dimensional ontology is employed to describe and explore the life of Johnson-Sirleaf from a psychobiographical perspective using publicly available information. The study focused on the period between 1938 and 2005. The findings suggest that Johnson-Sirleaf transcended psychophysical and psychosocial limitations and crafted a meaningful life. It seems Johnson-Sirleaf was guided by a sense of purpose and used her will to meaning to overcome psychosocial injustices and psychophysical issues. This study illustrates the value of Frankl's existential theory in illuminating the life histories of extraordinary political leaders and its potential contribution to contemporary mental health challenges.

ФИЛОСОФСКО-АНТРОПОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ АРХИТЕКТОНИКА СОВРЕМЕННОГО ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА

The article is devoted to philosophical understanding of education in the anthropo-ontological sense as a way of being human. The aim of this article is philosophical and anthropological analysis of educational space using the topological metaphor of dimensions, the high explanatory potential of which is grounded in the article. The author considers the ontological and spatial “turns” in modern ways of thinking about education and refers to four anthropo-ontological concepts: M. Scheler’s ontological “layering”, N. Hartmann’s layers of being, M. Heidegger’s “worlds” and V. Frankl’s dimensional ontology. The article also considers S. L. Frank’s principle of conciliarism as methodologically fruitful for building the architectonics of modern educational space. The key result is the proposed markup of the educational space: the allocation of its existential-anthropological vertical axis and social horizontal axis. The conclusion summarizes the methodological potential of the proposed concept.

Franklian Existentialism and Transformative Learning: Unlikely Co-Captains in Uncertain Times

Dimensional ontology is Viktor E. Frankl’s theory that contends humans are composed of their biological, psychological, and noological (spiritual) dimensions. Frankl maintains that it is in the noological dimension where humans freely choose their responses to the environmental, psychological, and biological conditions that befall them. Frankl’s humanistic existentialism is a pushback against depth psychology – which broadly is the belief that human behaviour can be ascribed to hidden motives such as drives, instincts, or the dictates of the unconscious. Some scholars have applied the ideas of Carl Jung, a depth psychologist, to their theorizing of transformative learning. Broadly, the aim of this conceptual paper is to chart new courses for scholars to explore spiritual and psychological aspects of transformative learning, more specifically, routes separate from depth psychology. It opens with brief reviews of humanism, existentialism, and depth psychology, before exploring how Franklian existentialism might enrich the already fertile and expansive terrain of transformative learning.

Finding Meaning in Life Threatening Illness.

This paper aims to explore how to help terminally ill patients and their families find meaning in their suffering from the logotherapeutic perspective, which is the essence of palliative care. For this purpose, this paper examines the main concepts and principles of logotherapy, and specific approaches based on the logotherapeutic perspective to help terminally ill patients and their families find meaning in life are presented. Emphasizing the will to meaning as the primary motive to explain human behaviors and based on its unique perspective of the human being, which is called the dimensional ontology, logotherapy considers the human being to consist of the body, the mind, and the spirit. The dimensional ontology implies that the human being "has" the body and the mind, but the human being "is" the spirit itself. Therefore, even though a human being can be sick physically or psychologically, Accordingly, it is essential to help these patients realize that they are not their illnesses, but just have them, and to rise above themselves to reach out toward something meaningful or someone to love; despite their suffering, they can still do something meaningful, even in a small way. Above all, the most important thing for these patients is to acknowledge that they have already lived a meaningful life and to believe that their meaningful work has been safely preserved in the past and nothing can take it from them, for as spiritual beings, their lives have been meaningful unconditionally.

Autonomia apesar da dependência: a construção de uma Antropologia Dimensional no diálogo entre Frankl e Hartmann

O artigo se trata de um estudo teórico onde são apresentados alguns pontos da Ontologia Dimensional de Nicolai Hartmann e a relação destes com a Antropologia Ontológico-Dimensional de Viktor Frankl. Além dos pontos em que se percebe uma clara influência de Hartmann no pensamento frankliano, procurou-se chegar a elementos do pensamento do primeiro para além daquilo que serve de fundamento à Logoterapia. Quanto à influência de Hartmann, concluiu-se pela centralidade de sua Ontologia Dimensional no esquema frankliano, atestada pelas concessões ao condicionamento “psicofísico” e pela crítica ao pandeterminismo e ao reducionismo. O resultado é a fórmula: “autonomia apesar da dependência”. Quanto aos elementos que estão para além daquilo que serve de fundamento à Logoterapia, perceberam-se possibilidades fecundas de diálogo, como por ocasião da discussão em torno da vida espiritual “a-temporal” e do “espírito objetivo”.

A Contribution of Frankl's Logotherapy to the Interpretation of Near-Death Experiences

Article discussing Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, which resolves potential conflicting sources of meaning by the application of the Laws of Dimensional Ontology, which validate apparently conflicting viewpoints. The application of these laws to the interpretation of near-death experiences (NDEs) resolves the conflict between the orthodox scientific view of NDEs as hallucination and the experiential view of them as experiences of the afterlife to come.

Embodiment: Thoughts from an Existential-Analytical Perspective

Modern culture has a keen in interest in the embodiment and comprehensive psychological approaches of conceptualizing the human body. Frankl proposed the theory of ‘dimensional ontology’, which included clear analytical models of human body but which were insufficient in many respects. This paper attempts to integrate existential-analytical ideas about embodiment and enrich them with other investigations in this sphere. The central argument is that the theory of four fundamental motivations developed by Langle is a useful way to comprehend the complexity of embodiment. This paper discusses the four levels of embodiment and the way in which the four fundamental existential themes are represented through embodiment.

Working on the noetic dimension of man: Philosophical practice, logotherapy, and existential analysis

Abstract Philosophical practice and logotherapy have much in common. Philosophical counselors and logotherapists are working with similar methods on the noetic dimension of man. Furthermore, the problems of their clients are the same, namely noetic. A challenging noetic problem of modern times is the existential frustration, which is not an illness but a “healthy pain”. No wonder that the neuropsychiatrist and philosopher Viktor E. Frankl, the founder of logotherapy and existential analysis and a pioneer of philosophical practice, explicitly called on philosophers to help existentially frustrated people. Significantly, Lou Marinoff mentioned Frankl's logotherapy and diagnosis of the existential frustration and identified the noetic dimension, which can be found in Frankl's dimensional ontology, as the province of philosophy. Nevertheless there is more to discover. In principle, the spiritual exercises by the ancient philosophers are nothing more than the methods of logotherapy: Socratic dialogue, modifica...

Depression, existential family therapy, and viktor frankl's dimensional ontology

In existential family therapy, it is believed that Viktor Frankl's dimensional ontology is a useful way to understand the different levels of depression that are important in both family assessment and family treatment. This article reviews Frankl's dimensional ontology, its usefulness for existential family treatment, the “must,” “can,” and “ought” levels of family depression, and presents clinical material illustrating the described existential family treatment approach.

A contribution of Frankl's logotherapy to the interpretation of near-death experiences

Article discussing Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, which resolves potential conflicting sources of meaning by the application of the Laws of Dimensional Ontology, which validate apparently conflicting viewpoints. The application of these laws to the interpretation of near-death experiences (NDEs) resolves the conflict between the orthodox scientific view of NDEs as hallucination and the experiential view of them as experiences of the afterlife to come.