Currently, mental disorders are usually concep-tualized as a hidden causal factor, manifested by its symptoms. This notion rests upon the reflective latent model, which is implicitly at work every time complex symptomatology gets summarized by a single number or a categorical state. The present paper reflects on the quantita-tive, testable implications of this psychometric model and shows how its restraints are untena-ble for most mental disorders. The observed data are instead consistent with mental disorders be-ing complex dynamic systems. Instead of being treated as interchangeable measures of the same latent factor, symptoms likely act as independ-ent causal entities, directly affecting each other. In recent years, this shift in ontological stance toward psychopathology has laid a basis for adapting the network theory. Under this theory, a mental disorder is a relatively stable emergent state, which arises due to a pronounced and re-current interaction of causally linked symptoms. It is discussed how models embedded within the network theory can help provide insight into the etiopathogenesis of mental disorders and ad-dress clinical intervention. In conclusion, limits and future challenges to the network theory are discussed. and Psychické poruchy bývajú konceptualizované ako skrytá kauzálna príčina, ktorá sa prejavu-je symptómami. Táto predstava je založená na reflektívnom latentnom modeli, ktorý sa impli-citne uplatňuje vždy, keď je komplexná sympto-matológia sumarizovaná vo forme čísla alebo kategorického stavu. V článku sú analyzované kvantitatívne, testovateľné implikácie tohto psychometrického modelu a na tomto základe je demonštrovaná jeho nevhodnosť pre konceptu-alizáciu väčšiny psychických porúch. Pozorova-né dáta naopak implikujú, že psychické poruchy sú komplexné dynamické systémy. Symptómy totiž nie sú ekvivalentným meraním jednej a tej istej latentnej premennej, ale fungujú ako nezá-vislé, vzájomne interagujúce kauzálne entity. Táto zmena nazerania na ontológiu psychopa-tológie viedla k adaptácii tzv. sieťovej teórie na kontext psychologických vied. V rámci tejto teórie je psychická porucha relatívne stabilným emergentným stavom, ktorý vzniká výraznými, opakujúcimi sa interakciami kauzálne prepoje-ných symptómov. Článok adresuje otázku, ako môžu modely vychádzajúce zo sieťovej teórie pomôcť pochopiť etiopatogenézu psychických porúch a adresovať klinickú intervenciu. V zá-vere sú načrtnuté limity a výzvy pre budúcnosť sieťovej teórie v psychológii.
The present article deals with the diffusion of the predominantly female Roman cult of Bona Dea. In order to contextualize and preliminarily assess Attilio Mastrocinque's (2011, 2014) hypothesis of a top-down imperial organization of the cult, supervised by empress Livia herself, both gendered constraints to mobility and the Augustan marriage ban are taken into account and evaluated. Epistemological and methodological limitations of social network analysis in the field of ancient history are carefully appraised before tackling the relationships between hypothetical imperial support and quantitative diffusion of the cult. As an alternative methodological approach, Donald W. Meinig's model of dynamic cultural regions is adopted, and adapted, to suggest a possible spatial and diachronic pattern of diffusion.
A deity with the name of Mithra (Mitra, Mithras) is attested from second millennium BC Indian Vedas to the first four centuries of the Roman Empire. Despite scholarly attempts to trace a line of influence from earlier manifestations of this deity, especially from the Persian Mithra to the Roman Mithras, recent research suggests that the character of Mithraic cults, even those of the Roman Mithras, remains primarily local. Might, however, the recent renewal of interest by historians in network theory – especially, network theory as it has been recast from sociological to chaos theory, to a "complexity-network theory" – show a relationship among the Mithraic cults, especially, among those of the Roman Empire? This possibility is supported by a recent network mapping of the cults of Jupiter Dolichenus in the Roman world. Despite the cults of Jupiter Dolichenus and those of the Roman Mithras both being transmitted (largely) by their embeddedness in the Roman military, there remain significant differences between the two religions that question the emergence of a network of Roman Mithraists. Rather, the approach of the cognitive science of religion, which seeks to identify the pan-human neurocognitive dynamics and attractors that underlie culturally contingent representations, and which has now also been employed by a few scholars of the Roman cults of Mithras, remains the most viable approach for understanding the relationship of diverse practices and cultural expressions of the disparate Mithraic groups.