Letters, Notes, and Comments

Letter: Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions
Commenting on "Leaping into the Boundless: A Daoist Reading of Comparative Religious Ethics" by Francisca Cho, "Moral Reason, Risk, and Comparative Inquiry" by Robin W. Lovin, "Heuristic Power as the Test of Theory" by Ronald M. Green, and "The Author Replies" by Francisca Cho     

“解释法”样例对小学生学习新运算规则的促进

为证实“解释法”样例设计的促进作用,实验考察了4年级小学生学习“解释”样例与普通样例、“解释”样例和“解释-标记”与普通样例的迁移效果。结果表明：（1）用“解释”样例学习分数加减运算规则的近迁移成绩明显优于普通样例,但远迁移成绩无显著差异;（2）用“解释-标记”样例学习分数乘除法运算规则的远迁移成绩明显优于“解释”样例和普通样例,但近迁移成绩差异不显著,学习“解释”样例的远迁移效果均明显优于普通样例;（3）学习“解释法”设计的比例运算样例,其远、近迁移成绩均明显优于普通样例的迁移成绩,并受被试先备知识的影响。     

论《周易》的“制器尚象”

“制器尚象”,不是如孔颖达等人理解的“依卦造器”或“观象制器”,而是借助各种发明创造事例(如井、鼎),来揭示“人法自然”思想在日常生活中的广泛运用。进而从侧面角度表达《易》道的广大和周普。     

《管子》中"礼法并用"的再探讨

《管子》所代表的"齐法家",较之以商鞅、韩非为代表的"晋法家",其最大的特色就是其中儒法结合的倾向。学界将这个特点称之为"礼法并用"。在本文中,从人性论基础、治理方式和"道统"观三个角度入手,认为《管子》中言"礼",很大程度上是从综合手段的意思上来说的,以教为本的意思不强。在这一点上,与先秦儒家的"礼"是有着根本性差别的,因此两者之间并不能简单的对等起来。较为准确的认识,应该是"礼治"与"法治"并存于以法为本的政治体系当中。     

The Mirror of the Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa on the Vestigia Trinitatis

This essay attempts to demonstrate something of the subtlety and complexity of Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian theology by paying close attention to the way in which, for Gregory, the Triune God is reflected in the "mirror" of the soul—both in its creaturely constitution and in the process of its sanctification by the Holy Spirit. The article is intended chiefly as an argument against the fashionable scholarly opposition between "Eastern" and "Western"—or "Cappadocian" and "Augustinian"—Trinitarianisms; it also is intended as an argument against "social" and "psychological" models of the Trinity alike (neither of which enjoys patristic warrant).     

孔、孟与管子德治思想之比较

孔子和孟子是先秦儒家最重要的代表人物,他们的思想中都有着丰富的德治内容。管子虽是早期法家的代表,但思想中同样具有德治的内容。孔、孟与管子在德治思想上有着很大的相似性,在惠民爱民、正名、正身率下、以民为本、善政措施、选贤任能等方面有着诸多的一致之处。但出于各自学派的立场,孔、孟与管子在德治与法治的关系、德治的目标与特征、德治的人性论的出发点等方面也存在着差异。     

Promoting perspective coordination by dilemma discussion. The effectiveness of classroom group discussion on interpersonal negotiation strategies of 12-year-old students

Promoting social competence and social cognition is an important aim of education and socialization. According to theories of social cognitive and moral development, social cognition may be promoted by adolescent peer interaction. In this study, social cognition is theoretically conceptualized by the interpersonal negotiation strategies model of Selman which distinguishes levels of perspective coordination and steps of information processing (identification of a problem, generating negotiation strategies, selection of a strategy, evaluation). In a pre-post control group design this study investigated whether dilemma discussions among peers lead to higher individual levels of perspective coordination compared to an individualistic condition. Members of the discussion-condition exhibited higher gain scores in perspective coordination compared to the control group regarding the information processing steps generating strategies and strategy selection. In order to analyze verbal interaction in the discussion groups, an integrative coding schedule was developed. In addition, trait-like argumentative motives of the participants were assessed. The results of multilevel analyses suggest that progress in posttest-perspective coordination is mediated by the groups consensual solution of the dilemma as well as by an explanation-oriented discussion style, but only if the latter is accompanied by a trait-like subject- and consensus-oriented argumentative motive. Theoretical and practical conclusions are drawn.     

Adjective ratings and dimension analyses of auditory rhythm patterns

Gabrielsson, A. Adjective ratings and dimension analyses of auditory rhythm patterns. Scand. J. psychol., 1973, 14, 244–260.-Rhythm experience for three classes of auditory rhythm stimuli, including music, was investigated by a variant of semantic differential technique in six experiments. The rating scales were chosen by means of questionnaires to musicians. The subjects rated the rhythms in a number of the scales and the ratings were subjected to factor analysis. The factors were interpreted as "uniformity-variation" or "simplicity-complexity", "accentuated first beat", "meter", "basic pattern", "rapidity", "movement characters" (floating-stuttering, dancing-walking and others), "vital-dull", "excited-calm", and "rigid-flexible".     

Ladies and Gentlemen, Women and Men: A Study of the Connotations of Words Indicating Gender

Lakoff's hypothesis about the connotations of the words "lady" and "woman" was investigated by asking college students to rate these words, as well as the masculine words "gentleman" and "man", on several adjective scales. Ratings indicated that the term "gentleman" implied greater competence and warmth than the word "man", while the term "lady" tended to suggest to raters relatively less competence and less warmth than the term "woman" did. Further, it was found that the more formal term ("gentleman", "lady") regardless of gender was described more positively than the less formal term ("man", "woman") on several scales concerned with goodness, politeness, morality, and femininity. Lakoff's hypothesis that "lady" conveys some unique meanings relative to sex role stereotypes thus received support, although some of the connotations of "lady" appear to be due to implied formality rather than to gender features. The degree to which feminine terms were differentiated by raters could be predicted to some extent on the basis of rater characteristics; no significant prediction was possible for the masculine terms.     

In Defence of Luck Egalitarianism

This paper considers issues raised by Elizabeth Andersons recent critique of the position she terms luck egalitarianism. It is maintained that luck egalitarianism, once clarified and elaborated in certain regards, remains the strongest egalitarian stance. Andersons arguments that luck egalitarians abandon both the negligent and prudent dependent caretakers fails to account for the moderate positions open to luck egalitarians and overemphasizes their commitment to unregulated market choices. The claim that luck egalitarianism insults citizens by redistributing on the grounds of paternalistic beliefs, pity and envy, and by making intrusive and stigmatizing judgments of responsibility, fails accurately to characterize the luck egalitarians rationale for redistribution and relies upon luck egalitarians being insensitive to the danger of stigmatization (which they need not be). The luck egalitarian position is reinforced by the fact that Andersons favoured conception of equality, democratic equality, is counterintuitively indifferent to all unchosen inequalities, including intergenerational inequalities, once bare social minima are met.I am indebted to Catriona McKinnon and Hillel Steiner for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. An antecedent of the paper was presented at the Northern Political Theory Association Annual Conference at the University of St Andrews in August 2003. Research for this article was supported by the University of York Alumni Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.     

The Poisoning of Nostalgia: Commentary

The present paper explores elements of traumatic separation associated with involuntary migration by individuals and groups. Loss of home, one's sense of security, familiarity, and historical continuity—without physical threat or actual injury—is examined within a cultural and historical context. The author addresses the complex implications of traumatic separation by conscious human choice, rather than natural processes, such as the poisoning of nostalgia, the process by which normal mourning of loss is undermined by a potentially transgenerationally enduring sense of betrayal of trust.     

Ecosystemic consultation in the kibbutz: social process and narrative in two cases of community “epidemic”

This paper emphasizes working with the social component of the biopsychosocial model. A dual approach for renarrating dysfunctional community narratives and for changing the social process is described. This approach was applied to two cases of epidemics allegedly cased by mysterious environmental agents that occured on kibbutzim. The collective adoption of irrational beliefs is analyzed by using concepts from sociology and crowd psychology. The suggestive effects of the emotional contagion and of the preoccupation with a persistent belief are examined by applying the concept of monoideism. The epidemics were resolved by working in collaboration with the community. The intervention programs mobilized inner resources by helping the kibbutzim to adopt a more unified approach to their presenting problems, and by challenged them to face previously avoided more fundamental dilemmas.     

On the relations between random walk models for two-choice response times

We state a condition on the moment-generating functions of the random walk model derived by Link and Heath (1975), which is necessary and sufficient to yield the sequential probability ratio test of Wald (1947) and the reaction-time model proposed by Stone (1960). A restricted form of this condition can also be obtained by imposing the types of symmetries on the moment-generating functions considered by Link and Health (1975) and Thomas (1975). The various conditions are contrasted and their implications for empirical investigation are discussed.     

Murder in the family: An analysis of two Poe short stories

Learning to be possessed has been described elsewhere by the writer as a form of pathogenic relating begun when children are taught by adults that they will receive a lesser penalty for misbehavior if they can show they were not responsible, such as if it were caused by an evil agent or the Devil. It was suggested that learning to be possessed can be an underlying cause of psychopathology, the delusion of persecution in particular. Two short stories by the distinguished American writer Edgar Allan Poe are examined to develop the formulation of learning to be possessed, especially when it has passed to a delusion of persecution. Two propositions are offered: (1) Where it appears that a family member is murdered by a delusional assailant by accident, it is not an accident; and (2) the delusion of persecution entails a memory loss so that the murderer not only can claim lack of personal responsibility for the act, but also spares himself the guilt of having broken a fundamental taboo. Further comparison is made between learning to be possessed as a cause of delusion, and the psychoanalytic theory in which the defense mechanism of projection is central. In the latter theory, interpretation of the delusion is critical; whereas in the former, interpretation is counterproductive because it merely reinforces the delusion.Probably a note of appreciation is due the writer's daughter Cary, who at age 14 is an expert at badgering her father for help with homework assignments. For several weeks the writer was alternatively pestered and cajoled to help Cary with her Poe Project for high school English which required an essay analyzing the work of a great American writer denigrated by the author as weird by his recollection formed decades earlier. Cary's persistence required the author to consider Poe anew, to recognize his unwarranted earlier prejudice, and to recognize that Poe offered him a gift of understanding regarding a topic about which the author had been thinking for several years, namely that form of pathogenic relating named learning to be possessed.     

Praxis and Agency in Foucault’s Historiography

This paper examines the consequences for agency that Foucaults historiographical approach constructs. The analysis begins by explaining the difference between legislative history and exemplary history, drawing parallels to similar theoretical distinctions offered in the works of Max Weber, J.L. Austin, and Zygmunt Bauman. The analysis continues by reading Habermass critique of Foucault through the tropological lenses suggested by White [Metahistory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973]; it argues that Habermass critique misrecognizes the tropes of Foucaultian genealogy. The paper draws implications for education by articulating possibilities for praxis and agency in terms of pedagogy specifically related to the distinction between didactics and modeling. The paper concludes by suggesting that genealogy does not play by Hegels rules, but rather exemplifies agency in ways that are not recognizable from a modernist perspective.     

The method of axiomatic rejection for the intuitionistic propositional logic

We prove that the intuitionistic sentential calculus is -decidable (decidable in the sense of ukasiewicz), i.e. the sets of theses of Int and of rejected formulas are disjoint and their union is equal to all formulas. A formula is rejected iff it is a sentential variable or is obtained from other formulas by means of three rejection rules. One of the rules is original, the remaining two are ukasiewicz's rejection rules: by detachement and by substitution. We extensively use the method of Beth's semantic tableaux.To the memory of Jerzy SupeckiTranslated from the Polish by Jan Zygmunt. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by C.P.B.P. 08-15.     

Many stimuli are frightening,but some are more frightening than others: The contributions of preparedness,dangerousness, and unpredictability to making a stimulus fearful

The nonrandom distribution of situational fears has been explained by evolutionary survival relevance of specific fears. Thirty-eight stimuli were taken from the literature on preparedness and were scored on fearfulness, objective dangerousness, and spatiotemporal unpredictability by three separate groups of students. The same items were scored on survival relevance by 15 biologists. Fearfulness of cues significantly correlated not only with survival relevance but also, and even more strongly, with dangerousness and unpredictability. While the fear/survival relevance association virtually disappeared when the unpredictability contribution was partialed out, the fear/unpredictability correlation was only marginally affected when controlling for survival relevance. This suggests that nonrandomness of feared stimuli may result from the spatiotemporal unpredictability that is attributed to these stimuli. The current practice of using snakes and spiders as phobia-relevant, and flowers and mushrooms as neutral, cues was not justified by the ratings of the 15 independent experts.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon, 560-268-001).