The Principle of Sufficient Reason and Libertarianism: A Critique of Pruss

Philosophia - Alexander Pruss’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) states that every contingent true proposition has an explanation. Pruss thinks that he can plausibly maintain both his PSR...     

There Is No Motive to Avoid Success: The Compromise Explanation for Success-Avoiding Behavior

ABSTRACT There are two traditional explanations for success-avoiding behavior the motive hypothesis and the cognition hypothesis A third hypothesis, compromise, is proposed m this article and explains success avoidance as a compromise between achievement and other goals A review shows that data explained by the motive hypothesis can be explained more parsimoniously by the compromise hypothesis, that some data are weakly inconsistent with the motive hypothesis, and that there is supportive evidence for the cognition and compromise hypotheses The implications of the compromise hypothesis for motivation research in general are discussed in terms of a control theory framework Compromises may be a common feature of intentional behavior     

Hope When There Is No Hope: Discussion of Jill Scharff's Case Presentation

Jill Scharff's case material is viewed and discussed here from the vantage point of the two partners being an interpenetrating unit held in the grip of an “enactment”—a coconstructed event in which the analyst's participation sometimes becomes so enmeshed with the patient's in an ongoing way that analyst and patient seem to be trapped together in a narrow and concrete tunnel of reality from which they cannot find an escape, gradually making the treatment feel more and more hopeless because it is immune to interpretation of internal conflict. In the language of enactment, analyst and patient are held conjointly in the grasp of a shared dynamic that is a central hallmark of dissociation—an intrapsychic phenomenon that is played out interpersonally. The relationship between trauma, dissociation, shame, and affect regulation is explored in the context of impasse, repair, and psychoanalytic “technique.”     

What Hope Is There: The Enthrallment of Empire Stories

In this article, I argue that many U.S. citizens are held captive by expansionist narratives and ideologies. Our enthrallment is explained, in part, by shared weak dissociation, rationalization, moralization, and denial. Theologically, I understand the ongoing presence of these narratives and ideologies in U.S. society as a manifestation of idolatry and a refusal to mourn. Furthermore, I argue that expansionist narratives signify the presence of fate and the distortion of hope, in particular, Christian hope.     

There Is No Bathing in River Styx: Rule Manipulation,Performance Downplaying and Adversarial Schemes

Adversarial scheme points to situations of rivalry like auctions, public tendering, sports competitions, elections or trials. Thomas Pogge suggested that these schemes have great advantage: they force agents to reveal their full performance. But they also incentivize agents to manipulate the rules. In other schemes with incentives, he also suggests, agents can easily downplay their performance, but won’t engage in rule manipulation to the same extent. In this paper, I will argue that adversarial schemes and other schemes with incentives advantages or disadvantages do not map from one to the other as Pogge suggests. Performance-downplaying also takes place in adversarial schemes, as well as in other schemes with incentives also lead to rule manipulation. I will also argue that there are genuine differences between these two types of schemes. Adversarial schemes have three unique advantages: first, they may be more effective in producing motivational improvements at a lower cost, second, they may lead to an automatic optimization of performances and, third, they may produce unique system benefits. In order to produce these advantages, we must design adversarial schemes properly and use them in the right situation.     

Bad News for Moral Error Theorists: There Is No Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies

A ‘companions in guilt’ (CG) strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie's master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument—one that purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments—can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons—specifically, whether they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist (in some form or other). I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist's position by considering the moral error theorist's arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay's [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality, according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical (hence, according to the moral error theorist, ontologically problematic) if and only if epistemic reasons are.     

The Meaning of Being: Husserl on Existential Propositions as Predicative Propositions

Axiomathes - This essay examines how Husserl stretches the bounds of his philosophy of meaning, according to which all propositions are categorical, to account for existential propositions, which...     

Spiritual Practices: The True Test of Spirituality

"Spirituality" may be the most loaded word in conversations on religion today. In this article I want to examine the current tensions between spirituality and religion and also suggest that "spiritual practices" are the key to authentic spirituality.     

目标或背景:联合搜索知觉学习的内容

采用颜色-形状联合搜索任务探讨短期特征联结知觉学习的效果和机制。训练被试在由不同颜色和形状组合的字母干扰子中搜索具有特定颜色和形状的目标字母,训练时间约为40分钟。通过训练,被试搜索特定的颜色-形状联结的目标字母的能力有所提升,并且学习效应能够迁移至背景改变目标不变的条件中,但是不能迁移至背景不变目标改变的条件中。这一结果提示,被试在进行短期联合搜索知觉学习时,学习到的是目标,而并非背景或目标与背景的联系。     

Not All Visual Expertise Is Holistic, but It May Be Leftist: The Case of Chinese Character Recognition

ABSTRACT— We examined whether two purportedly face-specific effects, holistic processing and the left-side bias, can also be observed in expert-level processing of Chinese characters, which are logographic and share many properties with faces. Non-Chinese readers (novices) perceived these characters more holistically than Chinese readers (experts). Chinese readers had a better awareness of the components of characters, which were not clearly separable to novices. This finding suggests that holistic processing is not a marker of general visual expertise; rather, holistic processing depends on the features of the stimuli and the tasks typically performed on them. In contrast, results for the left-side bias were similar to those obtained in studies of face perception. Chinese readers exhibited a left-side bias in the perception of mirror-symmetric characters, whereas novices did not; this effect was also reflected in eye fixations. Thus, the left-side bias may be a marker of visual expertise.     

Not All Is Well in My Ancestors' Home: An Indigenous Theology of Internal Critique

Indigenous communities are not of themselves holistic, and are not necessarily free from abuse of power. They are equally in need of internal reforms and emancipation from external forces of dominance and marginalization exist. Indigenous communities need an internal critique of people's experiences, particularly minorities and women. This thesis is set in the context of the Ao Naga Indigenous people of Northeast India.     

‘In God's Changelessness There Is Rest’: The Existential Doctrine of God's Immutability in Augustine and Kierkegaard

This article establishes a specific point of agreement between St Augustine and Søren Kierkegaard: for both thinkers the doctrine of God's immutability is an existential doctrine. Specifically, Augustine and Kierkegaard agree that God's immutability functions as a condition to preserve the existential integrity of the human creature across the vicissitudes of time and change. This article describes the existential role of God's immutability in Augustine and Kierkegaard, and it establishes this point of agreement between the two thinkers. Afterward, this article briefly considers some implications of this point of agreement for the interpretation of Augustine and Kierkegaard and some implications for the doctrine of God's immutability.