REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE PSYCHOMETRIC SOCIETY 8/15/2007

Treasurer's Report

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE PSYCHOMETRIC SOCIETY 8/15/2007     

REMOVING VEILS OF IGNORANCE1

For more than two millennia the development of philosophy in what is called the West has been the province of men who trace their intellectual heritage to (some) men in ancient Greece. Within “the development of philosophy” I include the training of philosophers as well as publishing and preserving philosophical work in libraries. Thus I regard philosophy as a very material as well as spiritual enterprise. My focus here is on the spiritual impact, actual and potential, of recent changes in the material base of philosophy and the material impact of recent changes in the spiritual focus of philosophers. Before the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions in the development of Western philosophy were its coming under the domination of Christian religious institutions and then its becoming relatively freed from such domination. Since the advent of the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions may come from the increasing access to academic institutions of the middle and working classes, of people of color with histories of oppression by white societies, and of women from all classes and ethnic backgrounds—people who do not always or only trace their intellectual heritages to men of ancient Greece. What differences might these changes make to, and call for in, the development of philosophy? What I have thought about most are differences made by women and differences that have drawn in women to academic philosophy in Western democracies, such as the United States. Twentieth Century women in these contexts have published substantial bodies of philosophical inquiry with feminist agendas (both philosophy of feminism and philosophy manifesting feminist perspectives in ethics, epistemology, etc.). I want to comment on two features of such inquiry that often make it attractive to women less readily engaged by the traditions defined by privileged men. These features are holism and what I call “historical particularism.” I begin with “particularism.”     

MALEBRANCHE'S DOCTRINE OF FREEDOM / CONSENT AND THE INCOMPLETENESS OF GOD'S VOLITIONS

‘God needs no instruments to act’, Malebranche writes in Search 6.2.3; ‘it suffices that He wills in order that a thing be, because it is a contradiction that He should will and that what He wills should not happen. Therefore, His power is His will’ (450). After nearly identical language in Treatise 1.12, Malebranche writes that ‘[God's] wills are necessarily efficacious... [H]is power differs not at all from [H]is will’ (116). God's causal power, here, clearly traces only to His volitions - not merely to the fact that He wills, but specifically to the content of His volitions (‘“what” He wills’). Yet despite the obviously key role the ordinary notion of volitional content plays for Malebranche, recent writers have paid surprisingly little attention either to it or its exegetical implications. I hope to rectify this situation here. The plan of this paper is this: first, to borrow current work in the philosophy of mind to sketch the notion of an incomplete volition, i.e. one whose content is ‘incomplete’ in a sense to be explained; second, to show that Malebranche clearly allows and uses something like this notion; third, to apply the notion to Malebranche's doctrine of human freedom. In so doing, I believe, we can understand this doctrine in a new way, and one which: (i) is clearly consistent with his texts, and (ii) unlike other interpretations makes coherent sense out of the conflicting streams in his heroic attempt to reconcile his occasionalism - the doctrine that no finite substances have genuine causal powers - with our freedom; fourth, Contrast my interpretation with those of two recent writers: Sleigh et al. (1998) and Schmaltz (1996); and Fifth, Summarize the major results.     

AN ENERGY/AWARENESS/INFORMATION INTERPRETATION OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REALITY

Abstract. Interpreting the universe as a medium-message process has explanatory value in both scientific and philosophical/spiritual contexts. From this perspective, reality is seen to comprise an enduring medium modulated by transient information. Physically, the medium is energy. Mentally, the medium is awareness. Algorithmically, the medium is an information generator, a programmatic entity that generates temporary informational patterns which modulate the medium's energy aspect in space and time to produce matter and physical phenomena and modulate the medium's awareness aspect to produce subjective experience, mind. In philosophical terms, the medium is Being; the medium modulated by the message is existence.     

MATERNAL ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION OF MEXICAN MIGRANT MOTHERS

This study examined correlates of maternal acceptance of preschool children in a sample of Mexican-American migrant farmworker mothers, including problems in life conditions (education, employment, relatives, friends, partner/spouse, children, health, housing, and finances) and social support (task, emotional, source, satisfaction, accessibility). One hundred Mexican-American mothers of preschoolers who participated in the Texas Migrant Council's Headstart Program were interviewed with regard to demographic information, social support, and problems in life conditions. The results supported the hypothesis that total social support accounts for more variation in maternal acceptance/rejection than problems in life conditions alone. Social support accounted for 75% of the variance in maternal acceptance/rejection of preschool children, and accessibility to support predicted the largest proportion of the variance. The results suggest that it is important to identify Mexican-American migrant farmworker mothers isolated from social support, since such isolation, in combination with problems in life conditions, places their children at higher risk for maternal rejection.     

CHINESE AND WESTERN INTERPRETATIONS OF JENb (HUMANITY)1

The concept of jen (humanity, love, humaneness; pronounced ren ) is a central concept of Confucian thought and has gone through a long evolution of more than 2000 years. The story of that evolution has been told elsewhere. The purpose here is to see how the Chinese have understood the concept and how the West has interpreted it. We shall discuss the Chinese understanding under seven headings.     

INFLUENCES OF THE VIRTUAL OFFICE ON ASPECTS OF WORK AND WORK/LIFE BALANCE

Millions of employees now use portable electronic tools to do their jobs from a "virtual office" with extensive flexibility in the timing and location of work. However, little scholarly research exists about the effects of this burgeoning work form. This study of IBM employees explored influences of the virtual office on aspects of work and work/life balance as reported by virtual office teleworkers ( n = 157) and an equivalent group of traditional office workers ( n = 89). Qualitative analyses revealed the perception of greater productivity, higher morale, increased flexibility and longer work hours due to telework, as well as an equivocal influence on work/life balance and a negative influence on teamwork. Using a quasi-experimental design, quantitative multivariate analyses supported the qualitative findings related to productivity, flexibility and work/life balance. However, multivariate analyses failed to support the qualitative findings for morale, teamwork and work hours. This study highlights the need for a multi-method approach, including both qualitative and quantitative elements, when studying telework.     

THE ENTANGLEMENT OF RACE AND COGNITIVE DIS/ABILITY

Abstract: To consider blackness and cognitive disability together is paradoxical. On one hand, supposed black intellectual deficit has been used by white elites as a justification for antiblack oppression. On the other, both black children who are struggling in school and black adults labeled with developmental disabilities are less likely than their white counterparts to access the best support services available. These problems cut across a commonly drawn—but, I argue, erroneous—divide between the "judgment" categories of mild cognitive impairment into which black children are disproportionately placed and the "organic" categories of severe cognitive impairment. This division is itself part of the contemporary collective denial of the racialized history and construction of our notion of intellect that ends up harming black Americans.     

INFLUENCE OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE ON THE INITIAL ACQUISITION OF READING/WRITING: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF VERBAL DEFICIT THEORY

This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental study of whether there exists a causal relationship between spoken language and the initial learning of reading/writing. The subjects were two matched samples each of 24 preschool pupils (boys and girls), controlling for certain relevant external variables. It was found that there was no causal relationship between the initial reading/writing performance and the language variables that have traditionally been regarded as relevant in facilitating the learning of reading/writing (vocabulary, articulation, and auditory memory). Phonemic awareness, however, was strongly causally related with the writing of simple words.     

FORUM: A DISCUSSION OF LEGAL/ETHICAL ISSUES

No abstract available for this article.