Aging and the Meaning of Time

Aging and the Meaning of Time PDF Author: Susan H. McFadden, PhD
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826103820
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
As we confront our own mortality, we might ask, "What has my long life meant and how have the years shaped me?" or "How long must I suffer?" Such questions reflect time-consciousness, the focus of this classic volume. The authors, from diverse disciplines in gerontology, act as guides in the exploration of the realms of time in later life and their meanings. As they examine how the study of time can give new meanings to aging, they also consider the religious and spiritual questions raised when human beings consider the temporal boundaries of life. This volume honors Melvin Kimble's contributions to gerontology and represents a new direction in the study of religion, spirituality, and aging.

Aging and the Meaning of Time

Aging and the Meaning of Time PDF Author: Susan H. McFadden, PhD
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
ISBN: 0826103820
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
As we confront our own mortality, we might ask, "What has my long life meant and how have the years shaped me?" or "How long must I suffer?" Such questions reflect time-consciousness, the focus of this classic volume. The authors, from diverse disciplines in gerontology, act as guides in the exploration of the realms of time in later life and their meanings. As they examine how the study of time can give new meanings to aging, they also consider the religious and spiritual questions raised when human beings consider the temporal boundaries of life. This volume honors Melvin Kimble's contributions to gerontology and represents a new direction in the study of religion, spirituality, and aging.

Aging and Time

Aging and Time PDF Author: Henk Visser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351845942
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The aim of this volume is to revitalise the debate about the concepts of time implicit in the study of aging. The many problems related to aging and the aged put an enormous pressure on the gerontological community to come up with practical applications and solutions. In considering research findings, we must keep in mind the basic assumptions that shape and influence even the most obvious statements about aging. In this multidisciplinary volume, the contributors take on the important task of exploring real issues concerning temporal concepts and approaches to aging; and the concepts of time that are used in thinking about aging determine to a large extent the way aging is approached. Most studies of aging still use a chronological approach to define populations for research purposes (that is, to determine which "aged" should be studied) and to establish how people's characteristics (social, economic, health and so forth) change as a function of age. This approach may lead to an accumulation of data, but does not in itself lead to explanatory knowledge. The step from chronological time to chronological age should be taken cautiously if we want to consider aging processes seriously, especially because chronological age is widely used in contemporary societies as a basis for regulating all kinds of processes, with many consequences for individuals. The arguments presented here do not deny the finitude of human life, nor do they deny that "aging" can be observed in any individual if we compare the characteristics of that person over a relatively long period. The question is how to approach these themes to get a better understanding. To achieve this, we need to understand the specific significance and relativity of chronological time and uncover unfounded deductions about time in relation to aging. This book will be of interested to students and professors of the social sciences, humanities and aging, including the methodology of aging studies; professionals working in the field of aging, including sociologists, psychologists and biologists.

Time of Our Lives

Time of Our Lives PDF Author: Tom Kirkwood
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195350006
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
By the year 2050 one in five of the world's population will be 65 or older, a fact which presages profound medical, biological, philosophical, and political changes in the coming century. In Time of Our Lives, Tom Kirkwood draws on more than twenty years of research to make sense of the evolution of aging, to explain how aging occurs, and to answer fundamental questions like why women live longer than men. He shows that we age because our genes, evolving at a time when life was "nasty, brutish, and short," placed little priority on the long-term maintenance of our bodies. With such knowledge, along with new insights from genome research, we can devise ways to target the root causes of aging and of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and osteoporosis. He even considers the possibility that human beings will someday have greatly extended life spans or even be free from senescence altogether. Beautifully written by one of the world's pioneering researchers into the science of aging, Time of Our Lives is a clear, original and, above all, inspiring investigation of a process all of us experience but few of us understand.

Aging and Human Nature

Aging and Human Nature PDF Author: Mark Schweda
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030250970
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book focuses on ageing as a topic of philosophical, theological, and historical anthropology. It provides a systematic inventory of fundamental theoretical questions and assumptions involved in the discussion of ageing and old age. What does it mean for human beings to grow old and become more vulnerable and dependent? How can we understand the manifestations of ageing and old age in the human body? How should we interpret the processes of change in the temporal course of a human life? What impact does old age have on the social dimensions of human existence? In order to tackle these questions, the volume brings together internationally distinguished scholars from the fields of philosophy, theology, cultural studies, social gerontology, and ageing studies. The collection of their original articles makes a twofold contribution to contemporary academic discourse. On one hand, it helps to clarify and deepen our understanding of ageing and old age by examining it from the fundamental point of view of philosophical, theological, and historical anthropology. At the same time, it also enhances and expands the discourses of philosophical, theological, and historical anthropology by systematically taking into account that human beings are essentially ageing creatures.

The Mirror of Time

The Mirror of Time PDF Author: Joan M. Boyle
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description


Coming to Terms with Aging

Coming to Terms with Aging PDF Author: Michael Grossman
Publisher: I Michael Grossman
ISBN: 1571431691
Category : Aging
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
While many societies embrace aging, ours shuns it. We hide signs of aging and whistle past our mortality. We have euphemisms to avoid the "D" word. We create a new apartheid-based on age-that keeps elders segregated in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. All this fear of aging-our denial-undervalues time and erodes our self esteem. Imagine the tremendous benefits of coming to terms with aging.

Challenges of the Third Age

Challenges of the Third Age PDF Author: Robert Stuart Weiss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195150252
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
This volume addresses the issues of the Third Age--that time after retirement when financial stability and reduced obligations to others, together, allow for freedom--and good health makes it possible to enjoy that freedom. How, in this special time of life, is meaning and purpose to be found? And what alternatives are available? These difficult questions are responded to by scholars in the field of aging, some themselves in the Third Age.

The Experience of Aging

The Experience of Aging PDF Author: Olga Stadelmann Gerhart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The provocation for this dissertation is a brief contention: aging is not synonymous with disease. This contention is a corrective reaction to the pervasive sensibility that aging is a disease, and which therefore casts the character of time's passing as a process of destruction. The upshot of this corrosive sensibility is that we are not aging well. Guided both by the belief that we can reconstruct the meaning of time's passing and an ameliorative sensibility to heal human suffering, the dissertation offers an alternative, more fruitful understanding of aging in which the character of time changes from a process of destruction into one of creative individual genesis. This is how we should experience time as time passes. Living in this way is an achievement: It is the activity of ferreting out the best possible ways in which to live so that life is deep and robust with concatenated meaning. This philosophical diagnosis of aging is situated within two philosophical traditions -- first, existentialism and, second and primarily, the pragmatism of classical American philosophers. The deceptively simple insights from existentialism at work in the dissertation are this: that we are ontologically free to choose our own persons and that our freedom resides in the ever-present possible. The next philosophical move that is made is the pragmatic turn: that, with a sense that there is always something better, we attend to how it is that we press into our possibilities by listening to and heeding experience so that we adapt and grow as individuals. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/151132

The Evening of Life

The Evening of Life PDF Author: Joseph E. Davis
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 026810803X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Although philosophy, religion, and civic cultures used to help people prepare for aging and dying well, this is no longer the case. Today, aging is frequently seen as a problem to be solved and death as a harsh reality to be masked. In part, our cultural confusion is rooted in an inadequate conception of the human person, which is based on a notion of absolute individual autonomy that cannot but fail in the face of the dependency that comes with aging and decline at the end of life. To help correct the ethical impoverishment at the root of our contemporary social confusion, The Evening of Life provides an interdisciplinary examination of the challenges of aging and dying well. It calls for a re-envisioning of cultural concepts, practices, and virtues that embraces decline, dependency, and finitude rather than stigmatizes them. Bringing together the work of sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, and medical practitioners, this collection of essays develops an interrelated set of conceptual tools to discuss the current challenges posed to aging and dying well, such as flourishing, temporality, narrative, and friendship. Above all, it proposes a positive understanding of thriving in old age that is rooted in our shared vulnerability as human beings. It also suggests how some of these tools and concepts can be deployed to create a medical system that better responds to our contemporary needs. The Evening of Life will interest bioethicists, medical practitioners, clinicians, and others involved in the care of the aging and dying. Contributors: Joseph E. Davis, Sharon R. Kaufman, Paul Scherz, Wilfred M. McClay, Kevin Aho, Charles Guignon, Bryan S. Turner, Janelle S. Taylor, Sarah L. Szanton, Janiece Taylor, and Justin Mutter

Growing Old

Growing Old PDF Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 1855845059
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
'And that is one thing we need to relearn, that all of life brings its gifts – not only the first two or three decades.' – Rudolf SteinerWhen are we actually old? What happens as we age? How will we cope with old age? Growing old is an art, and to grow old in the right way we need spiritual understanding. In this enlightening anthology – compiled by a director of care homes for the elderly – wide-ranging cosmological perspectives alternate with detailed observations of the phenomena of ageing. Rudolf Steiner sees ageing within the context of the earthly and spiritual evolution that encompasses all forms of existence. The book thus begins with the primary meaning that ageing has in developmental terms and ends with a consideration of the human being as co-creator in cosmic processes – and with our capacity to become increasingly conscious of the tasks this implies.These key texts by Rudolf Steiner show how spiritual knowledge can broaden the current debate on the study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems faced by older people. Concerns about our 'ageing population' can be seen in a broader context that recognizes the fruits of old age. The productive relationship between childhood and old age – a running theme throughout this volume – is one example. If we grow old consciously, viewing ageing not only as a period of physical decline but as a time when we can actively participate in shaping life, then we can begin to find greater meaning in it.Chapters include: 'The Core Messages of Ageing'; 'Fundamental Principles of Gerontology'; 'Ageing as a Developmental Process'; 'Ageing: the Risks and Opportunities'; The Art of Growing Old'; 'Old Age and Death'; 'Growing Old – A Challenge for Education'; 'The Cosmological Dimensions of Ageing'.