Role of structure in disordered thinking in borderline and schizophrenic disorders

Qualitative studies have noted that individuals with "borderline" psychopathology exhibit extreme thought disorder on unstructured tests, yet manifest relatively normal performance on more structured tests of cognitive performance. The present study provides empirical support for this clinical observation. Borderline syndrome patients, defined by DSM-III criteria for borderline personality disorder and/or schizotypal personality disorder, demonstrated significantly greater thought disorder on the Rorschach, as measured by Johnston and Holzman's (1979) Thought Disorder Index (TDI), than did nonpsychiatric controls and were indistinguishable from patients with schizophrenic disorder of relatively recent onset. Borderline patients did not differ from controls on a structured test of cognitive slippage. Further examination of the role of structure in the assessment and treatment of borderline syndrome disorders seems warranted.     

从"炸药"到"伟哥"创新历程的启示--科学创新思维中的逻辑与直觉

国家的经济发展需要科学创新的成果,而创新的成果源自创新的思维.法国数学家彭加勒在谈到创新性的思维时说过:"逻辑用于论证,直觉用于发明",并提出了创造性的科学思维活动的"三段式"理论.从"炸药"到"伟哥"科学创新的百年历程中,去验证和探究彭加勒的科学哲学思维,以及这个理论中包含的逻辑与直觉的关系.     

Wittgenstein and logic

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) presents the concept of order in terms of a notational iteration that is completely logical but not part of logic. Logic for him is not the foundation of mathematical concepts but rather a purely formal way of reflecting the world that at the minimum adds absolutely no content. Order for him is not based on the concepts of logic but is instead revealed through an ideal notational series. He states that logic is “transcendental”. As such it requires an ideal that his philosophical method eventually forces him to reject. I argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophy is more dialectical than transcendental.     

Reasoning and logic

Gilbert Harman, in Logic and Reasoning (Synthese 60 (1984), 107–127) describes an unsuccessful attempt ... to develop a theory which would give logic a special role in reasoning. Here reasoning is psychological, a procedure for revising one's beliefs. In the present paper, I construe reasoning sociologically, as a process of linguistic interaction; and show how both reasoning in the psychologistic sense and logic are related to that process.     

Probability and logic

The paper is an attempt to show that the formalism of subjective probability has a logical interpretation of the sort proposed by Frank Ramsey: as a complete set of constraints for consistent distributions of partial belief. Though Ramsey proposed this view, he did not actually establish it in a way that showed an authentically logical character for the probability axioms (he started the current fashion for generating probabilities from suitably constrained preferences over uncertain options). Other people have also sought to provide the probability calculus with a logical character, though also unsuccessfully. The present paper gives a completeness and soundness theorem supporting a logical interpretation: the syntax is the probability axioms, and the semantics is that of fairness (for bets).