On the Dao in the Commentary of the Book of Change

The existence of the Dao 道 (the Way), according to the Yizhuan 易传 (the Commentary), is something intangible. The connotation of the Dao is the law of change caused by the interaction between yin and yang. The main functions of the Dao are “to change” and “to generate”. The intangible refers to the law of change caused by the interaction between yin and yang, and the law is expressed by the divinatory symbolic system (卦爻符号, the trigrams or hexagrams). It is through the unique permutation of yin and yang lines of a trigram or hexagram that the law of change is explained as a universal model uniting celestial, terrestrial and human laws. The symbolic system is used to express the universal nature of continual generation of life. __________ Translated from Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 (History of Chinese Philosophy), 2005(4) by Yun Yufen     

Changing the affective valence of the stimulus items influences the IAT by re-defining the category labels

The Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) is a computer-based categorization task that measures concept association strengths. Greenwald et al. (1998) demonstrated that participants completed the categorizations more quickly when pleasant and flower shared a response key than when pleasant and insect shared a response key, and when pleasant and White shared a response key than when pleasant and Black shared a response key. In Study 1, we reversed the typical IAT effect for flowers and insects, and eliminated the typical IAT effect for White and Black, by changing the affective valence of the stimulus items. In Study 2, we replicated the reversibility effect for an animal and plant IAT, and supported a category re-definition hypothesis. Our results have implications for understanding the IAT, and suggest that the IAT not only measures stereotypic responses, but can also be influenced by individuating information of the stimulus items.     

On the irreducibility of the will

This paper criticizes the thesis that intending to do something is reducible to some combination of beliefs and desires. Against Audi's recent formulation of such a view I offer as counterexample a case wherein an agent who wants and expects to V has not yet decided whether to V and hence does not yet intend to. I try to show that whereas belief that one will V is not necessary for intending to V, as illustrated in cases of desperate attempts to V, one cannot intend to V without preferring to V (rather than not V) and thus one cannot intend to V without, in some sense, wanting to V (at least wanting it in preference to not V-ing). The connection of one's intentions with one's objectives, attempts, plans, and hopes is briefly treated, and some influential work by Davidson is criticized.     

Searle on the unity of the world

According to mentalism some existing things are endowed with (subjectively) conscious minds. According to physicalism all existing things consist entirely of physical particles in fields of force. Searle holds that mentalism and physicalism are compatible and true—“the world is one”. The aim of this paper is to show that Searle fails to make the compatibility between mentalism and physicalism intelligible. The paper has three parts: first, I criticize drawing an analogy between solidity and consciousness as macro-features of systems with micro-features. Second, I argue that Searle’s defence of the ontological irreducibility of consciousness is terminologically confused and that his argument for the trivial nature of that irreducibility is unsuccessful. Third, I defend Nagel’s argument for the causal irreducibility of conscious minds by answering some of Searle’s objections to it.

Using the antisaccade task to investigate the relationship between the development of inhibition and the development of intelligence

A number of authors have proposed models of cognitive development that explain improvements in intelligence over the course of childhood via changes in the efficiency of inhibitory processes ( Anderson, 2001 ; Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1990 ; Dempster, 1991 , 1992 ; Dempster & Corkill, 1999a ; Harnishfeger, 1995 ; Harnishfeger & Bjorklund, 1993 ). A review of the literature reveals little empirical support for the thesis. This is largely due to a failure to distinguish between age‐related and non‐age‐related changes in both inhibitory ability and intelligence. Empirical evidence is presented from a developmental study employing the antisaccade task to provide support for the role of inhibitory processes in the development of intelligence. Additionally, a case is made for a functional difference underlying antisaccade errors that are subsequently corrected and those that remain uncorrected.     

Knowing the intuition and knowing the counterfactual

I criticize Timothy Williamson’s characterization of thought experiments on which the central judgments are judgments of contingent counterfactuals. The fragility of these counterfactuals makes them too easily false, and too difficult to know.

Wittgenstein and the Dualism of the Inner and the Outer

A dualism characteristic of modern philosophy is the conception of the inner and the outer as two independently intelligible domains. Wittgenstein’s attack on this dualism contains deep insights. The main insight (excavated from §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations) is this: our sensory consciousness is deeply shaped by language and this shaping plays a fundamental role in the etiology of the dualism. I locate this role in the learning of a sensation-language (as described in §244), by showing that this learning is, under another aspect, the incision of language, namely the infliction of cuts upon certain natural-primitive unities between the inner and the outer. These cuts, driven by powerful forces, eventually harden into an entrenched division between the inner and the outer, thereby providing a constant soil for the dualism. That this dualism is rooted in the very learning of a language is cause for ambivalence about language.     

On the examination of the role of the episcopalian priest in the pastoral ministry

The purpose of the research was to identify empirically and measurably those dimensions considered important by laity in evaluating their priest. The 83-item questionnaire was developed from existing instruments and from an interview survey carried out on laity from a national selection of Episcopal parishes. 221 parishes responded with complete data. A factor analysis was performed on the data yielding eight useable factors: (a) Pastoral sensitivity, (b) Administrative Skills, (c) Scholarship, (d) Personal Integrity, (e) Innovation, (f) Personal Spirituality, (g) Meaningfulness of Services, and (h) Laity Involvement. The results of the research were seen as a beginning insight into what the laity perceived as important aspects of their parish priest's role, and an instrument to measure these dimensions for further research was produced.     

The state of the art and the fate of the earth

A recent review by Nevin of Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth applies a “behavioral perspective” to the problem of species survival in a nuclear age. It is suggested that no perspective, in this context as in others where less is at stake, should dismiss prematurely some useful ideas from other perspectives. A sampling of “cognitive” concepts is offered to illustrate what actions, aimed at resisting species extinction, might follow from them—not instead of, but in addition to, the guidelines for action a behavioral perspective provides.     

Martin Bucer's Assessment of the Canon of the Mass in the Era of the Religious Colloquies

Abstract

In the early part of his reforming career Martin Bucer shared Luther's and Zwingli's contempt for the Canon of the Mass. However, in the era of the religious Colloquies (1540-1546) Bucer argued that it was the practices and theological commentaries associated with the Canon—not the Canon itself—that supported the debased theology of Eucharistic sacrifice prevailing under the papacy. Bucer maintained that the genuine meaning of the Canon was to be found in the writing of the Fathers, the liturgies of the Eastern church and, indeed, in Aquinas’ Summa. Bucer seems to have hoped that the Catholics would admit communion under both kinds and abolish the private Mass in exchange for the retention of a ‘suitably interpreted’ Canon. An outline of this interpretation can be seen in Article Twenty of the Worms-Regensburg Book (1540-1541). It was further developed in Constans dejensio (1543) and De vera et falsa caenae dominicae administratione (1546) both written in the aftermath of the first Colloquy of Regensburg (1541).     

A Statistical Hypothesis Testing Method for the Rank Ordering of the Priorities of the Alternatives in the Analytic Hierarchy Process

In analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a ratio scale (π₁, π₂, ⋯, π_t) for the priorities of the alternatives {T₁, T₂, ⋯, T_t} is used for a decision problem in which π_i/π_j is used to quantify the ratio of the priority of T_i to that of T_j. In a group decision‐making setup, the subjective estimates of π_i/π_j are obtained as entries of a pairwise comparison matrix for each member of the group. On the basis of these pairwise comparison matrices, one of the topics of interest in some situation is the total rank ordering of the priorities of the alternatives. In this article, a statistical method is proposed for testing a specific total rank ordering of the priorities of the alternatives. The method developed is then illustrated using numerical examples. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating the Reliability of the Sentence Verification Technique

Reading comprehension plays an important role in achievement for all academic domains. The purpose of this study is to describe the sentence verification technique (SVT) (Royer, Hastings, &; Hook, 1979 Royer, J. M., Hastings, C. N., &; Hook, C. (1979). A sentence verification technique for measuring reading comprehension. Journal of Reading Behavior, 11(4), 355–363. doi:10.1080/10862967909547341[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) as an alternative method of assessing reading comprehension, which can be used with a variety of texts and across diverse populations and educational contexts. Additionally, this study adds a unique contribution to the extant literature on the SVT through an investigation of the precision of the instrument across proficiency levels. Data were gathered from a sample of 464 fourth-grade students from the Northeast region of the United States. Reliability was estimated using one, two, three, and four passage test forms. Two or three passages provided sufficient reliability. The conditional reliability analyses revealed that the SVT test scores were reliable for readers with average to below average proficiency, but did not provide reliable information for students who were very poor or strong readers.     

Tyndale's Disagreement with Luther in the Prologue to the Epistle to the Romans

Abstract

Although it is generally assumed that Tyndale's Prologue to the Epistle to Romans (1526) is a translation of Luther's Preface (1522), this article examines those places where Tyndale deviated from a straight translation of Luther's text, and supports Thomas More's statement that Tyndale was a worse heretic than Luther. Tyndale's doctrine of God, the Father, Christ, and especially of the Holy Spirit, faith, righteousness, flesh and spirit, the state of fallen man and the temporal regiment show Tyndale was not doctrinally a Lutheran when he wrote his Prologue to Romans.     

On the effect of field structure on the duration of the movement after-image

Zusammenfassung Wir haben die Arbeitshypothese aufgestellt, daß die Dauer des Bewegungsnachbildes von denselben Faktoren abhängt, welche die phänomenale Geschwindigkeit beeinflussen. Diese Hypothese wurde bestätigt; wir konnten uns die funktionellen Beziehungen zwischen der Dauer des Nachbildes und der Geschwindigkeit des Vorbildes für ein auf bestimmter Weise struktuiertes Feld voraussagen auf Grund der bekannten Wirkung des Feldes auf die gesehene Geschwindigkeit.

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Paper presented to the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science, November 1931.     

Theology and narrative: the self,the novel,the Bible

This paper critically evaluates the work of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre by comparing their understanding of the narrative structure of selfhood with paradigms derived from three other sources: Heidegger’s conception of human being as Dasein; Rowan Williams’ interpretation of Dostoevsky’s theology of narrative; and Kierkegaard’s project of reading the Old Testament narrative of Abraham and Isaac as part of the Christian God’s autobiography. These comparisons suggest that Taylor and MacIntyre’s own narratives of Western culture lack a certain, theologically required openness to a variety of specific ways in which both individuality and history resist understanding in narrative terms as much as they demand it.     

Strategic Maneuvering with the Intention of the Legislator in the Justification of Judicial Decisions

The author gives an analysis of the strategic manoeuvring in the justification of legal decisions from a pragma-dialectical perspective by showing how a judge tries to reconcile dialectical and rhetorical aims. On the basis of an analysis and evaluation of the argumentation given by the US Supreme Court in the famous Holy Trinity case, it is shown how in a case in which the judge wants to make an exception to a legal rule for the concrete case tries to meet the dialectical reasonableness norm by seeing to it that his standpoint is sufficiently defended according to the requirements of the burden of proof of a judge in a rational critical discussion and how he tries at the same time to be rhetorically convincing for the legal audience by presenting the decision as a choice that is in line with the argumentation schemes and starting points that can be considered as accepted by the legal community in the US and by the US community as a whole.

Correct Responses and the Priority of the Normative

The ‘Wrong Kind of Reason’ problem for buck-passing theories (theories which hold that the normative is explanatorily or conceptually prior to the evaluative) is to explain why the existence of pragmatic or strategic reasons for some response to an object does not suffice to ground evaluative claims about that object. The only workable reply seems to be to deny that there are reasons of the ‘wrong kind’ for responses, and to argue that these are really reasons for wanting, trying, or intending to have that response. In support of this, it is pointed out that awareness of pragmatic or strategic considerations, unlike awareness of reasons of the ‘right kind’, are never sufficient by themselves to produce the responses for which they are reasons. I argue that this phenomenon cannot be used as a criterion for distinguishing reasons-for-a-response from reasons-for-wanting-to-have-a-response. I subsequently investigate the possibility of basing this distinction on a claim that the responses in question (e.g. admiration or desire) are themselves inherently normative; I conclude that this approach is also unsuccessful. Hence, the ‘direct response’ phenomenon cannot be used to rule out the possibility of pragmatic or strategic reasons for responses; and the rejection of such reasons therefore cannot be used to circumvent the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem.

Tool use and the distalization of the end-effector

We review recent neurophysiological data from macaques and humans suggesting that the use of tools extends the internal representation of the actor’s hand, and relate it to our modeling of the visual control of grasping. We introduce the idea that, in addition to extending the body schema to incorporate the tool, tool use involves distalization of the end-effector from hand to tool. Different tools extend the body schema in different ways, with a displaced visual target and a novel, task-specific processing of haptic feedback to the hand. This distalization is critical in order to exploit the unique functional capacities engendered by complex tools.

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