Self-Esteem: The Past of an Illusion

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

The Illusion of Exclusivity

It is widely held that when you are deliberating about whether to believe some proposition p, only considerations relevant to the truth of p can be taken into account as reasons bearing on whether to believe p and motivate you accordingly. This thesis of exclusivity has significance for debates about the nature of belief, about control of belief, and about certain forms of evidentialism. In this paper I distinguish a strong and a weak version of exclusivity. I provide reason to think that strong exclusivity is an illusion and that weak exclusivity may also be an illusion. I describe a number of cases in which exclusivity seems not to hold, and I show how an illusion of exclusivity may be generated by a rather different feature of doxastic deliberation, which I call demandingness.     

Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self

In the contemporary debate on the nature of autonomy, it is generally taken for granted that autonomy is to be understood as rule by the self, with the debate centring on how that self is to be identified. Garnett [2013b Garnett, Michael 2013b. The Autonomous Life: A Pure Social View, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91/4. [Google Scholar]] has recently proposed a theory that rejects the dominant understanding of autonomy as rule by the self and views it instead as resistance to rule by others. According to that theory, an autonomous agent is one whose various ‘autonomy traits’ render her sufficiently resistant to subjection to foreign wills. I argue that Garnett has not given us good reason to abandon the understanding of autonomy as rule by the self. His account is plausible only if it is understood to require for autonomy the possession of at least one trait with which the agent can be identified. And the best explanation of the necessity of some such trait(s) is offered, not by Garnett's, but by the dominant understanding of autonomy he rejects.     

闪光滞后效应的机制：时间错觉与空间错觉

闪光滞后效应（flash—lag effect,FLE）是指在与某运动物体相同的位置上呈现的闪光（flash）知觉上滞后于该运动物体的视错觉。本文简要介绍了有关闪光滞后效应机制的理论模型。笔者认为,目前各种理论的争议可归结为时间错觉假说与空间错觉假说之争,并在此基础上就今后进一步研究的方向提出了建议。     

浅谈李冶诗歌中的道教美学义蕴

李冶是唐代著名的女冠诗人.由于其道士的特殊身份和深受道教浸染的思维方式,她的诗歌中折射出了道教美学的义蕴.本文从其诗歌着手,认为她的道教美学义蕴有以下三点:一、"生即美"的道教美学生命意识;二、气韵清虚的道教审美心境;三、哲理体悟的道教美学理性色彩.     

The PMS Illusion: Social Cognition Maintains Social Construction

This article reports the results of a preliminary study of ways that self-serving biases contribute to the maintenance of the cultural stereotype of the premenstrual woman. Self-serving biases such as illusory optimism and the false uniqueness effect lead individuals to believe that they are better than average and less likely to have negative experiences. Thus, even though individual women’s premenstrual symptoms are mild to moderate, they accept the stereotype because they believe that other women’s symptoms are worse than their own. Participants were 92 undergraduate women from two small colleges in southern New England. They completed measures of optimism, locus of control, and premenstrual symptoms and answered a series of questions about the incidence of PMS. Participants showed a significant tendency to believe that other women’s premenstrual symptoms are worse than their own. In addition, women who were high in optimism were significantly less likely to believe that they could be diagnosed with PMS, and they had significantly lower scores on the pain and behavior change subscales of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire than did those low in optimism.     

Art as Alchemy: The Bildobjekt Interpretation of Pictorial Illusion

I argue that if we read E. H. Gombrich's Art and Illusion with the charity that it deserves, we will find a much subtler theory of depiction than the illusion theory that is usually attributed to Gombrich. Instead of suggesting that pictures are illusory because they cause us to have experiences as of seeing the depicted objects face to face, I argue that Art and Illusion is better read as making the point that naturalistic pictures are illusory because they cause us to see qualities and properties that the pictures themselves do not possess. Once we appreciate this point, we will be in a better position to appraise the value and limits of naturalistic art.     

The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle

Book reviewed:
The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle – Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (Transcribed, Edited and with an Introduction by Gordon Baker; Translated by Gordon Baker, Michael Mackett, John Connolly and Vasilis Politis); Routledge; London and New York, 2003 (Pp xlviii + 558. German and English Texts on Facing Pages.)     

The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle

Book Information The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle. The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann, ed. Gordon Baker, London : Routledge, 2003, 528, US$100 (cloth) Edited by Gordon Baker. By Ludwig Wittgenstein. and Friedrich Waismann. Routledge. London. Pp. 528. US$100 (cloth:),     

论唐代道士吴筠的咏史组诗

吴筠是唐代著名道士,其《高士咏》与《览古》诗是前代少见的咏史组诗。《高士咏》的创作目的是为了批判当时社会上的伪隐之风,对历史上的高士进行咏赞。《览古》诗则从道家哲学观、社会观的角度,对历史发展、演变作出了哲学思考,告诫士子应全身远害。其咏史组诗的艺术特色与价值在于:具有浓厚的道家色彩;达到了人物形象塑造的共性与个性的统一;体现出平和冲淡与悲沉凝重两种艺术风格,并有强烈的理性色彩;吴筠的咏史组诗对后世产生了较大的影响。     

The Couch and the Circle by Hyman Spotnitz

A qualitative study explored the therapeutic elements in psychodynamic group therapy for adolescents with learning disabilities and related psychosocial problems. Four boys and four girls, diagnosed with learning disabilities, were interviewed on completion of group therapy, to obtain their subjective experiences. Therapeutic factors were identified, grouped, and found to be operative through an interpersonal process, termed mutual recognition. Mutual recognition is defined as the adolescents realizing that they saw themselves in the others and that the others saw themselves in the participants. The subcategories were trust, connection, and group issues/process. The subcategories were interactive: they contributed to, and were influenced by, mutual recognition.     

The Square Circle

This article shows that there are square circles (or equivalently, round squares) in the sense that there are mathematical objects that are at the same time both perfectly circular and perfectly square. The philosophical significance of this is discussed, especially in view of philosophy's widespread use of “square circle” as a typical example of an impossibility. In particular, the focus is on what the existence of square circles means for the possibility of conceptual analysis, and more generally what we can learn about the nature of non‐formal concepts and their use in philosophy.     

Illusion of Transparency

It's generally agreed that, for a certain a class of cases, a rational subject cannot be wrong in treating two elements of thought as co-referential. Even anti-individualists like Tyler Burge agree that empirical error is impossible in such cases. I argue that this immunity to empirical error is illusory and sketch a new anti-individualist approach to concepts that doesn't require such immunity.