Stuffed Cabbage in the Old New School Cafeteria

The purpose of this lecture is to celebrate the memory of Aron Gurwitsch by examining and enlarging the domain of phenomenological clarification of some elements of what Gurwitsch called the logic of reality. Chief among those elements are the nature of the taken-for-grantedness of our existential belief, the difference between presentive and non-presentive indices of reality and the ground for the self-illumination of the world of working.     

Some notes on the nature of methodological indeterminacy

This paper is an attempt to extend the meaning of the concept of indeterminacy for the human sciences. The authors do this by coining the term methodological indeterminacy and arguing that indeterminacy is better understood when linked to specific methodological techniques. Paradoxically, while specific research techniques demonstrate that the issue of indeterminacy is complex, yielding the possibility of types and degrees, it does not eliminate the problem of translation first raised by Quine. However, the authors go on to argue that, from a research perspective, indeterminacy can and must be approached in such a way that it is possible to reduce cases of it, even though never completely eliminating it in the human sciences.     

Peer Contagion of Depressogenic Attributional Styles Among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

This study examined longitudinal associations between adolescents and their friends depressive symptoms and depressogenic attributional style. Participants included 398 adolescents in grades six through eight at the outset of the study. Adolescents completed peer nominations to identify reciprocated and unreciprocated best friendships as well as measures of depressive symptoms and depressogenic attributional style at an initial time point, and again 11 months later. Results revealed that best friends reported level of depressive symptoms was prospectively associated with adolescents own depressive symptoms and with adolescents depressogenic attributional style. Moderator effects suggested that friends attributional styles were prospectively associated with adolescents own attributional styles for those involved in reciprocated friendships. Lastly, findings offered preliminary support for adolescents Time 2 depressive symptoms as a mediator of the association between friends depressive symptoms and adolescents attributional style. Findings have important implications for cognitive and interpersonal models of adolescent depression, as well as the study of peer contagion effects.     

Three views of demonstrative reference

Three views of demonstrative reference are examined: contextual, intentional, and quasi-intentional. According to the first, such reference is determined entirely by certain publicly accessible features of the context. According to the second, speaker intentions are criterial in demonstrative reference. And according to the third, both contextual features and intentions come into play in the determination of demonstrative reference. The first two views (both of which enjoy current popularity) are rejected as implausible; the third (originally proposed by Kaplan in Dthat) is argued to be highly plausible.     

Preschool Children’s Pretend and Physical Play and Sex of Play Partner: Connections to Peer Competence

This study was designed to examine associations between preschool childrens pretend and physical play with same-sex, other-sex, and mixed sex peers and childrens social competence with peers. Sixty predominately middle-class preschoolers (33 boys, 51 European-American) were observed on the playground at their school over a period of 4 months. Childrens same-sex, other-sex, and mixed-sex peer play was observed, and teachers and peers provided assessments of childrens social competence. Analyses revealed that children who engaged in more same-sex pretend play were better liked by peers and were viewed by teachers as being socially competent. In addition, girls who engaged in same-sex exercise play and boys who engaged in same-sex rough-and-tumble play were better liked by peers, whereas boys who engaged in rough-and-tumble play with other-sex peers were less liked by peers. The results suggest that child gender and gender of playmate are important factors in the association between pretend play and rough-and-tumble play and childrens social competence with peers.     

Socialism in One Country: A Reassessment

Until 1917 Lenin and Trotsky believed that an isolated revolutionary Russia would have no chance of survival. However, from 1917 to 1923 Lenin's standpoint on this matter underwent a complete reversal. First he came to the conclusion that socialism could be built in an isolated Russia, although it would remain incomplete in the absence of the world revolution. By 1923 he was abandoning that latter qualification too. The standpoint of Stalin and Bukharin in the debate on socialism in one country of 1925–26 was more orthodox-Leninist than the position taken by Trotsky, who had at first also embraced the notion of incomplete socialism, but subsequently returned to the old concept, abandoned by Lenin, that the restoration of capitalism was inevitable in the absence of the world revolution.     

REBT and Rationality: Philosophical Approaches

This paper argues that philosophical critiques of concepts in psychotherapy are inappropriate unless the context in which they are used is taken into account. In the case of REBT it is misleading to try to evaluate Ellis' use of rationality by matching it with the concept which has developed in modern philosophy of science. There is no pure essence of rationality which could enable it to be applied normatively in all contexts. The pitfalls of attempting this are illustrated by analysing two recent attempts to criticise rationality in REBT, by Erwin (1997) and O'Donohue and Vass (1996). We argue that Rationality in REBT can only be understood by seeing it as part of a network of categories and practices (a discursive formation) that has evolved over the last 45 years.     

Parents’ satisfaction with their child’s first year of school

A group of university and vocationally educated parents (n=486) were requested to evaluate their satisfaction with their childs first school year, and they were also asked to recall the positive and negative events from their childs academic year. Both structured and open-ended measures consistently revealed that parents were quite satisfied with the functioning of their childs school. Parents social–psychological distance from the school, as measured by their social positions in the education hierarchy, tended to structure parental satisfaction: the mothers, and especially the university-educated parents, indicated the highest level of satisfaction, and these groups emphasized both positive and negative recollections; the group farthest from the school turned out be the vocationally educated fathers. Our results highlighted the teacher: the recollections concerning the teachers were evenly distributed into positive and negative accounts, and negative recollections regarding teachers and home-school cooperation in particular affected parents overall satisfaction. The findings were discussed in terms of their implications for educational policy.     

Early German approaches to experimental reading research: The contributions of Wilhelm Wundt and Ernst Meumann

Summary Wundt looked at the reading process from a predominantly theoretical perspective. He opposed the total shape theory formulated by Erdmann and Dodge and insisted on the occurrence of attention shifts during word recognition. As an alternative to the total shape theory, he formulated a two-stage theory of word recognition. An initial, apperceptive phase of reading is concerned with the active analysis of visually salient local details, and a second, assimilative phase fills in the unanalyzed parts of words on the basis of a passive evocation of earlier experiences with graphemic input. Meumann looked at the reading process from the point of view of an educational psychologist. His review of experimental reading research presents most of the basic issues which are still controversial today. In his recommendations for the teaching of reading, he emphasized the importance of analyzing words into their constituent sounds and of articulatory awareness as a precondition for the firm establishment of connections between graphemes and speech sounds. The review discusses some of the reasons why the experimentally based approach to the psychology of reading failed to evoke the interest of German educators after World War I.     

Metaphysics and the interpretation of persons: Davidson on thinking and Conceptual Schemes

Certain metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions are shown to play a role in the defense of Davidson's claims that an empirically constructed theory of truth provides an adequate theory of meaning for any natural language. Dadivson puts forward demonstrative arguments in favor of these presuppositions in On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme, Thought and Talk, and The Method of Truth in Metaphysics. These arguments are examined and found to include controversial and dubitable assumptions as premises. It is then suggested that both these controversial assumptions and Davidson's metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions can be partially defended, however, by dialectical, interpretive, and historical arguments that elucidate the nature of persons.     

Warranting reconsidered: Response to Feldman

Summary The examples presented by Professor Feldman underscore the need to distinguish several of the notions of warranting examined in Counterfactuals. It is tempting to apologize for the complexity of the above considerations. But this complexity reflects the truth of the matter, that our intuitions concerning warranting require a variety of warranting notions. The aim of Counterfactuals was to make this complexity manageable by providing a unified method, the method of e-systems and contractions, for distinguishing and explaining the types of warranting.     

The Fear of Happiness Anthropological Motives

Anthropologies are different – but Man has seldom been defined as a creature of happiness. Especially in German philosophy there has been a deep scepticism against happiness, most famously in Schopenhauer's pessimistic world view, but also in the desperate visions and in the heroic cynicism following from them in Nietzsche's philosophy. Although Kant and Hegel – influenced by liberal (English) thoughts – have not under estimated the happiness of the single individual, the majority of philosophers – particularly the representatives of Philosophical Anthropology in the 20th century (Scheler, Plessner and Gehlen) – remained (as will be examined in this essay in more detail) sceptical about happiness as fulfilment. In this topos there is also an evident emotion against mass society and a cultural-critical aversion to the eudaimonia of consumerism. In this way, from the point of view of the educated elites, happiness in modern times can only be found in social and intellectual distance, e.g. in the security of contemplation (especially after fascism with its promises of an activism bringing happiness). The dominant element seems to be a philosophical fear of happiness, of decadence and of happy nivellement. Even Goethe had seen Dr. Faustus losing his life and eternal salvation when he was thinking of the moment as so beautiful that it should remain so forever. But in spite of all these attitudes and modes of sceptical thinking, it may be neither naïve nor uncritical to concur with Blaise Pascal: That pleasure is good and suffering bad does not need further evidence. The heart feels it.     

Parent–child relationships during the divorce process; from attachment theory and intergenerational perspective

This study examined four possible predictors of parental satisfaction in the first year after divorce: Attachment style, parenting style, perception of own parents parenting, and the ex-spouses assessment of the quality of the parents parenting. Findings among 49 divorced couples showed that the mothers satisfaction was anchored in themselves and their behavior, fathers satisfaction in their perceptions of their mothers and ex-wives. Among mothers, the less dismissing their attachment style and the greater the centrality of the child in their parenting style, the more satisfaction they tended to report. Among fathers, greater satisfaction was predicted by more education, perception of their own mother as less overprotective, and their perception of their ex-wifes approval of the quality of their fathering.     

PROXY FUNCTIONS,TRUTH AND REFERENCE

Quines ontological relativity is related to Tarskis theory of truth in two ways: Quine repudiates term-by-term-correspondence, as does Tarskis rule of truth; and Quines proxy argument in support of relativity finds exact formulation in Tarskis truth definition.Unfortunately, relativity is threatened by the fact that the proxy argument doesnt comply with the rule of truth (Tarskis celebrated condition (T)). Despite Quines express allegiance to (T), use of proxy schemes does not generate all of the true sentences condition (T) requires.A possible adjustment is to drop (T), retain the satisfaction definition and proxy argument, and appeal to the theory of observation and indeterminacy of reference as grounds of relativity. But as we shall see Quines theories of assent to observation sentences and of reference-learning dont square easily with his naturalism. The first attributes intentional attitudes to observers; and the second assumes a holistic context principle and a concept of individuation which do not withstand scrutiny as empirical notions. Both appear to violate Quines behavorist canon.A saving alternative is a theory of term-reference that appears in Roots of Reference and affords a return to behaviorism, and reinstatement of the proxy argument and relativity in a way compatible with Tarskis (T).     

Simmel on Happiness

The article gives an overview of Simmel's thought on happiness between the 1890s and 1918. The focus is on the effects of Simmel's general orientation towards the Lebensphilosophie, especially via his reception of Nietzsche. Throughout his writings Simmel displays a distance against traditional views of happiness as an aim of action. Within the framework of Lebensphilosophie happiness becomes a quality of essentially lived life (or, following Nietzsche, heightened life). As a consequence, Simmel's concept of happiness tends to emphasize connotations of felicity, and can therefore be interpreted as a modern, secularized variant of traditional beatitudo.     

Kenneth Strike on Liberalism,Citizenship and the Private Interest in Schooling

After indicating a number of points of agreement with the argument 0eveloped by Kenneth Strike in his article Liberalism, Citizenship and the Private Interest in Schooling, this article identifies and explores a number of queries and criticisms which arise in relation to that argument. These queries and criticisms relate especially to the nature and extent of the expansiveness involved in Strike's conception of public or common educational influence, and to the implications and justification of the claim that private educational interests enjoy a greater salience and recognition on Strike's view of public or common educational influence than on some alternative views.     

Utility theory with inexact preferences and degrees of preference

a–b* c–d is taken to mean that your degree of preference for a over b is less than your degree of preference for c over d. Various properties of the strength-of-preference comparison relation * are examined along with properties of simple preferences defined from *. The investigation recognizes an individual's limited ability to make precise judgments. Several utility theorems relating a–b * c–d to u(a)–u(b) are included.     

Thinking about the Needy: A Reprise

This article discusses Jan Narvesons Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Todays World, and Is World Poverty a Moral Problem for the Wealthy? and their relation to my Thinking about the Needy, Justice, and International Organizations. Section 2 points out that Narvesons concerns differ from mine, so that often his claims and mine fail to engage each other. For example, his focus is on the poor, mine the needy, and while many poor are needy, and vice versa, our obligations may differ regarding the poor than regarding the needy. Also, Narveson invokes a narrow conception of morality as those rules that government or society may compel people to follow. Given a broader, more plausible, conception of morality, many of Narvesons claims actually support my substantive views. Section 3 shows that many of Narvesons claims are relevant to the best means of aiding the needy, but do not challenge the validity of that end. This is true, for example, of his claims about the role of poor governments, the importance of freedom, the undesirability of mere handouts, and the effects of bad economic policies. Section 4 defends the importance of my distinction between acting justly and acting for reasons of justice. It illustrates that on several widely shared conceptions of justice there might be agent-neutralreasons of justice to aid the needy, even if from an agent-relative perspective one would not be acting unjustly if one failed to do so. Section 5 contests Narvesons portrayal of egalitarianism as concerned about inequality of wealth, per se, as insensitive to prior wrongs, and as holding that the worse-off have a right to be made better off at the expense of the well-off. In addition, it rejects Narvesons contention that egalitarians violate impartiality, and aim to impose their personal tastes on others. Section 6 challenges a fundamental assumption underlying Narvesons doctrine of mutual advantage. In addition, it denies that egalitarians are irrational merely because equality can conflict with the pareto principle. More generally, by appealing to impersonal ideals, it challenges the widely held view that the pareto principle is a condition of rationality. Section 7 argues that Narvesons meta-ethical assumptions are controversial, internally inconsistent, in tension with his normative views, and ultimately a version of skepticism. In addition, it challenges Narvesons view about the role intuitions play in moral theory. Section 8 clarifies points where Narvesons discussion of my views may be misleading. Finally, the paper notes the role that moral reasons may play in deliberation and action, but emphasizes the philosophical and theoretical nature of my work. My aim is to determine the moral considerations that are relevant to how people should act regarding the needy. Whether people will actually be moved to so act, for those reasons or otherwise, is another matter.     

Happiness and virtue in Socrates' moral theory

Conclusion In Section IV above we start with texts whose prima facie import speaks so strongly for the Identity Thesis that any interpretation which stops short of it looks like a shabby, timorous, thesis-saving move. What else could Socrates mean when he declares with such conviction that no evil can come to a good man (T19), that his prosecutors could not harm him (T16(a)), that if a man has not been made more unjust he has not been harmed (T20), that all of happiness is in culture and justice (T16(a)), that living well is the same as living justly (T15)? But then doubts begin to creep in. Recalling that inflation of the quantifier is normal and innocuous in common speech (that job means everything to him, he'll do anything to get it, will stick at nothing) we ask if there is really no chance at all that no evil in T19, not harmed in T20 might be meant in the same way? The shift from no harm at T16(a) to no great harm at T16(b), once noticed, strengthens the doubt. It gets further impetus in T21(b) when to explain how all of happiness is in culture and justice he depicts a relation (that recurs more elaborately in T22) which, though still enormously strong, is not quite as strong as would be required by identity. The doubt seeps into T15 when we note that current usage did allow just that relation as a respectable use of the same.At that point we begin to wonder if resort to the Identity Thesis might not be just a first approximation to a subtler, more finely nuanced, doctrine which would give Socrates as sound a foundation for what we know he wants to maintain at all costs - the Sovereignty of Virtue - without obliterating the eudaemonic value of everything else in his world. We cast about for a credible model of such a relation of virtue to happiness and hit on that multicomponent pattern sketched on p. 9 above. We ascertain that this will afford a comprehensively coherent eudaemonist theory of rational action, while its rival would not, and will fit perfectly a flock of texts in Section V which the latter will not fit at all. Are we not entitled to conclude that this is our best guide to the true relation of virtue to happiness in Socrates' thought - the one for which he would have declared if he had formulated explicitly those two alternative theses and made a reasoned choice between them?The Socrates of this paper is the protagonist of Plato's earlier dialogues. I list these (by self-explanatory abbreviations), borrowed from T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory [1974] (hereafter PMT): Ap., Ch., Cr., Eud., Eu., G., HMa., HMi, Ion, La., Ly., Pr., R., I. I assume, but shall not argue here, that in this segment of his corpus, Plato aims to recreate the doctrines and arguments of his teacher in dramatic scenes, all of which (except for the Ap.) may be, and most of which undoubtedly are, fictional; I shall be referring these works, under this proviso, as Plato's Socratic dialogues. (I did not include the Menexenus in the above list, since the parody of a funeral oration in this dialogue is implicitly dissociated from Socrates.)     

Some problems concerning the logic of grammatical modifiers

This paper consists principally of selections from a much longer work on the semantics of English. It discusses some problems concerning how to represent grammatical modifiers (e.g. slowly in x drives slowly) in a logically perspicuous notation. A proposal of Reichenbach's is given and criticized; then a new theory (apparently discovered independently by myself, Romain Clark, and Richard Montague and Hans Kamp) is given, in which grammatical modifiers are represented by operators added to a first-order predicate calculus. Finally some problems concerning applications of adjectives to that-clauses and gerundive-clauses are discussed.