The Return of the Myth of the Mental∗

McDowell's claim that “in mature human beings, embodied coping is permeated with mindedness”,1 1. “What Myth?”, this issue, p. 339. suggests a new version of the mentalist myth which, like the others, is untrue to the phenomenon. The phenomena show that embodied skills, when we are fully absorbed in enacting them, have a kind of non‐mental content that is non‐conceptual, non‐propositional, non‐rational and non‐linguistic.

This is not to deny that we can monitor our activity while performing it. For solving problems, learning a new skill, receiving coaching, and so forth, such monitoring is invaluable. But monitoring what we are doing as we are doing it degrades performance to at best competence. On McDowell's view, there is no way to account for such a degradation in performance since the same sort of content would be involved whether we were fully absorbed in or paying attention to what we were doing.

McDowell claims that it is an advantage of his conceptualism that it avoids any foundationalist attempt to build up the objective world on the basis of an indubitable Given or any other ground‐floor experience. And, indeed, if the world is all that is the case and our minds are unproblematically open to it, all experience is on the same footing. But one must distinguish motor intentionality, and the interrelated solicitations our coping body is intertwined with, from conceptual intentionality and the world of propositional structures it opens onto. The existential phenomenologist can then agree with McDowell in rejecting traditional foundationalisms, while yet affirming and describing the ground‐floor role of motor intentionality in providing the support on which all forms of conceptual intentionality are based.     

From the Characterization of ‘European Philosophy of Science’ to the Case of Philosophy of the Social Sciences

How distinct is European philosophy of science? The first step is to characterize what is or might be considered as ‘European philosophy of science’. The second is to analyse philosophy of the social sciences as a relevant case in the European contribution to philosophy of science. (1) ‘European perspective’ requires some clarification, which can be done from two main angles: the historical approach and the thematic view. Thus, there are several structural and dynamic things to be considered in European philosophy of science and compare with other conceptions: (i) the topics discussed; (ii) the contents proposed; and (iii) the style of thought used. (2) The case of philosophy of the social sciences is relevant for the historical approach and for the thematic view. Historically, the Erklären–Verstehen methodological controversy arose in this continent, where the main authors and most of the influential approaches are located. Thematically, we can consider the contributions made by these European approaches to philosophy of the social sciences. They give us some distinctive features of European philosophy of science.     

What is the Good/ Good of the FORM of the GOOD?

‘Good’ is nothing specific but is transcendentally or generally applied over specific, and specified, ‘categories’. These ‘categories’ may be seen—at least for the purposes of this note—as under Platonic Forms. The rule that instances under a category or form need a Form to be under is valid. It may be tautological: but this is OK for rules. Not being specific, however, ‘good’ neither needs nor can have a specifying Form. So, on these grounds, the Form of the Good is otious. Any rule of the kind, ‘Everything needs a Form, so good needs a Form of the Good’ is mistaken, in that good is not a kind, but a transcendental. To give a Form to the transcendental ‘good’ is a mistake: it is a Rylian category mistake. And the Form of the Good either does no work, or works unprofitably in any but an aesthetic sense.     

Seeing the world with the eyes of the outgroup — The impact of perspective taking on the prototypicality of the ingroup relative to the outgroup

The positive effect of perspective taking on favorable attitudes towards stigmatized individuals and outgroups is well established (Batson et al., 1997). We draw on the ingroup projection model (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999) to better understand the processes underlying this effect. Based on their egocentric perspective, ingroup and outgroup members have different representations of the superordinate group (perspective divergence) so that the ingroup is perceived as more relatively prototypical of the superordinate group, leading to negative outgroup evaluation. We hypothesize that the positive effect of perspective taking on outgroup attitudes is due to a reduction of relative ingroup prototypicality. Across three studies with different manipulations of perspective taking, we found that participants who were taking the perspective of an outgroup member evaluated the outgroup more positively and were less inclined to perceive their ingroup as more relatively prototypical. The effect of perspective taking on outgroup attitudes was mediated by relative ingroup prototypicality.     

Al-Ghazali’s Position on the ‘Second Proof’ of the ‘Philosophers’ for the Eternity of the World,in the First Discussion of the Incoherence of the Philosophers

In the Incoherence of the Philosophers, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) raised objections against the doctrine of the ‘philosophers’ (represented chiefly by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina) on 20 specific points. In the first, and longest discussion, he examines and rebuts four of their proofs of the pre-eternity of the world—that is, that the universe as a whole had no beginning but extends perpetually into the past. Al-Ghazali rejects that doctrine. But his own position on the issue does not become clear until he discusses the philosophers’ ‘second proof.’ In this paper, I will examine the relevant text of the Incoherence of the Philosophers, in order to clarify the nature of Al-Ghazali’s position in relation to the second proof. I will explain why Al-Ghazali cannot adopt what I refer to as the ‘naïve’ theological position, according to which God temporally preceded the world. Instead, Al-Ghazali concurs with the philosophers that time is the measure of motion, but he asserts that time was created with the world, both having a beginning before which there was no time. God, on the other hand, is not temporally prior to the world, but neither is he simultaneous, as the second proof supposes. As timelessly eternal, God bears no temporal relation to the world at all. In conclusion, I describe what I refer to as a naïve philosophical position, which is entailed by the second proof, but distinct from both Al-Ghazali’s position and that adopted by Ibn Rushd in his critique of Al-Ghazali in the Incoherence of the Incoherence. I argue that this naïve philosophical position (and thus, the second proof) is incoherent.     

Is the loss of diagnosticity of the eye region of the face a common aspect of acquired prosopagnosia?

A recent study published in this journal has shown an abnormal performance at discriminating differences with respect to the eyes of unfamiliar faces in two acquired prosopagnosic patients, but preserved processing of the mouth region. Here we extend these findings by showing a similar lack of sensitivity to the eyes in the very same face matching experiment for the prosopagnosic patient PS, who also showed normal performance for detecting differences in the mouth region. These results complement previously published evidence that the patient PS presents a lack of sensitivity to diagnostic information located on the eyes of familiar faces during individual face recognition tasks. More generally, they indicate that the impaired processing of the eyes of faces is a fundamental aspect of acquired prosopagnosia that can arise following damage to different brain localizations.     

In the Name of the Spirits -- A Reading of Solov'ëv's Justification of the Good

In this contribution, the author analyzes Vladimir Solov'ëv's intention to study the idea of the Good as something relatively independent from religion and metaphysics. Some implications of Solov'ëv's definition of moral philosophy in The Justification of the Good are investigated, and illustrated with his applied ethics of war in chapter 18 of this book. It appears that Solov'ëv's moral philosophy and his account of war must be understood in connection with the central place of the cult of ancestors in his ethics. The idea of the Good and the idea of God spring from a religious origin and appear in our efforts to conjure up and exorcize the spirits of our forefathers. The author explains this ethics by referring to Solov'ëv's article China and Europe. There, Solov'ëv assumes that the Christian mind is treatened by the danger of a cultural order in which the cult of ancestors is most purely preserved. In the future war against China, however, Christian civilization must show itself superior to its enemy without betraying its loyalty to its own ancestors. The author concludes that in Solov'ëv's ethics, the moral subject is divided between the confirmation of its own autonomy and its being haunted by the spirits of its forefathers, a haunt which results in relentless wars against others     

How should the History of Education be Written? Some Reflections about the Nature of the Discipline from the Perspective of the Reception of our Work

How should history of education be written? To put the question is far more easier than to provide a concrete answer. In contemporary research, there continue to be pedagogistic complaints about finding answers to present-day educational problems via history. In our view, such an ahistorical utilitarianism as well as the legitimizing and/or mythologizing belief in a particular pedagogical system, in which the history of this field is so rich since the institutionalization of the discipline at the end of the nineteenth century, should be avoided at all costs. But the danger of presentism lurks around the corner as a sine qua non condition in any form of historical research. As can be found out via the comments on our own work, much of the criticism goes back to old conceptions of the discipline, conceived as historical pedagogy rather than as history of education. Apparently, in the field of pedagogy people are still convinced that the history of education, even if it does not provide edifying examples and useful lessons, must in any case have a training value for professionals – which in the light of modern, advanced research is rather a difficult idea to defend.     

A Review of “The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible”

The life and works of Muslim Kurdish intellectuals have long interested scholars and have been the subject of many studies. These studies have generally been based on the Kurds’ own works and on other sources, primarily in Kurdish, written in the contemporary period. Only rarely has there been recourse to another group of sources that might shed additional light on these neglected personalities. This article discusses one of these other sources, the Arabic biographical dictionaries known as . Arab biographers in these compendia present Kurdish writers in a somewhat different light, not necessarily negative, from that found in other Arabic and Persian sources.     

Empirical investigation of the ethical reasoning of physicians and molecular biologists – the importance of the four principles of biomedical ethics

Background  

This study presents an empirical investigation of the ethical reasoning and ethical issues at stake in the daily work of physicians and molecular biologists in Denmark. The aim of this study was to test empirically whether there is a difference in ethical considerations and principles between Danish physicians and Danish molecular biologists, and whether the bioethical principles of the American bioethicists Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress are applicable to these groups.     

“The end of history ” and the fate of the philosophy of history

The “end of history” by Fukuyama is mainly based on Hegel’s treatise of the end of history and Kojeve’s corresponding interpretation. But Hegel’s “end of history” is a purely philosophical question, i.e., an ontological premise that must be fulfilled to complete “absolute knowledge.” When Kojeve further demonstrates its “universal and homogeneous state,” Fukuyama extends it into a political view: The victory of the Western system of freedom and democracy marks the end of the development of human history and Marxist theory and practice. This is a misunderstanding of Hegel. Marx analyzes, scientifically, the historical limitation of Western capitalism and maintains, by way of a kind of revolutionary teleology, the expectation of and belief in human liberation, which is the highest historical goal. His philosophy of history is hence characterized by theoretical elements from both historical scientificalness and historical teleology.     

Growth or Decline in the Church of England during the Decade of Evangelism: Did the Churchmanship of the Bishop Matter?

The Decade of Evangelism occupied the attention of the Church of England throughout the 1990s. The present study employs the statistics routinely published by the Church of England in order to assess two matters: the extent to which these statistics suggest that the 43 individual dioceses finished the decade in a stronger or weaker position than they had entered it and the extent to which, according to these statistics, the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Evangelical tradition differed from the performance of dioceses led by bishops shaped in the Catholic tradition. The data demonstrated that the majority of dioceses were performing less effectively at the end of the decade than at the beginning, in terms of a range of membership statistics, and that the rate of decline varied considerably from one diocese to another. The only exception to the trend was provided by the diocese of London, which experienced some growth. The data also demonstrated that little depended on the churchmanship of the diocesan bishop in shaping diocesan outcomes on the performance indicators employed in the study.     

The introduction of the Video Assistant Referee supports the fairness of the game – An analysis of the home advantage in the German Bundesliga

The introduction of the video assistant referee (VAR) was a landmark in soccer history, yet it is not empirically examined whether the technology contributes to the most supreme value of the game: fair play. Because referees are said to be one driving cause of the home advantage (HA), the aim of this study was to examine whether the HA changed in the German Bundesliga since the implementation of the VAR in the season 2017/18. We examined a total of 2448 games during the four seasons before and after the implementation of the VAR with regards to the game outcomes (i.e., goals and points) as well as indicators of referee bias (i.e., fouls, yellow cards, 2nd yellow cards, red cards, and penalty kicks) for both the home and the away teams. Findings indicate that the VAR influences game outcomes to a fairer degree. Specifically, (i) we found statistical evidence for the HA before, but not after the implementation of the VAR. However, (ii) these results need to be interpreted with caution because direct assessments of the change induced by the introduction of the VAR are not statistically significant. Finally, (iii) with the implementation of the VAR, fewer fouls were committed by both the home and the away team.     

Does control of the environment enhance the perception of control?

It has been proposed that control over the environment increases the perception of control, thereby enhancing motivation. Revesman and Perlmuter (1981) found that when subjects were permitted to choose response terms to be learned on a paired-associate task, decision latencies were faster if the announcement of the desired option caused the screen upon which materials were printed to go blank. On the basis of the results of the present experiment, it was concluded that control of the environment does result in faster decision latencies, but that this effect occurs despite a decrease in the perception of control.     

Is the Appeal of the Doctrine of Double Effect Illusory?

Scanlon (2008) has argued that his theory of permissibility (STP) has more explanatory power than the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). I believe this claim is wrong. Borrowing Michael Walzer’s method of inquiry, I will evaluate the explanatory virtue of these accounts by their understanding of actual moral intuitions originated in historical cases. Practically, I will evaluate these accounts as they explain cases of hostage crises. The main question in this context is: is it permissible that nation-states act with military force in order to liberate hostages, even if those actions put the lives of the hostages at risk? The first part of this paper has an operative reconstruction of the relevant theories. In the second section, two cases of hostage crises will be considered: the Moscow theater hostage crisis of 2002, and the Jaque Operation, which occurred in Colombia in 2008. Additionally, it will be shown that DDE explains these cases better than STP. Finally, this paper offers a critical analysis of Scanlon’s account of the explanatory power of both STP and DDE.     

Settling on what we are: The central place of the sense‐of‐self in education,and the implication of the concepts of the teleon and telentropy for the development of the sense‐of‐self

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the centrality of the development of a person's sense‐of‐self in his or her personal growth, and so to justify why educators should deliberately focus the attention of learners on the development of their own senses‐of‐self.

We describe the sense‐of‐self as a person's working hypothesis of what he or she is, as a functioning being. (This is in contrast to the notion of self‐concept, which is composed of the beliefs and evaluations that one has about oneself as a person in a social context.)

To illustrate the centrality of the sense‐of‐self we introduce two associated concepts—the teleon and telentropy. Teleons are “purposeful action patterns,” which may be regarded as the defining characteristic of any living system, including human beings.

Telentropy is similar to entropy (encountered in physics and chemistry), but instead of dealing with the level of disorder in externally described systems, it represents the level of informational confusion existing within an organism regarding its own true nature.

We discuss the implications of the concepts “teleon” and “telentropy” for a person's educability, using examples from daily life and educational institutions.

We provide a number of suggestions for the revising of educational practice to foster the development of the sense‐of‐self in learners. This we demonstrate to have potentially beneficial effects of the general stress levels of society.     

Factor Analysis of the Dutch-Language Version of the MCMI–III

The reliability and validity of the Road Test was evaluated, using 330 Ss varying in the number of poorly planned geographic movements (flights). Scoring criteria were developed on an independent sample. Interjudge reliabilities were .81 or above (mean = .92). Groups were differentiated on emotional expression and time span. Males and females differed in emotional expression, philosophical attitude toward life, and personal reference. It was concluded that the Road Test could be of value as a measure of life orientation and emotional expression when used in conjunction with other psychological assessment methods.