Emeralds are no chameleons — Why “Grue” is not projectible for induction

The model function for induction of Goodmans's composite predicate Grue was examined by analysis. Two subpredicates were found, each containing two further predicates which are mutually exclusive (green and blue, observed before and after t). The rules for the inductive processing of composite predicates were studied with the more familiar predicate blellow (blue and yellow) for violets and primroses. The following rules for induction were violated by processing grue: From two subpredicates only one (blue after t) appears in the conclusion. As a statement about a future and unobserved condition this subpredicate, however, is not projectible for induction whereas the only suitable predicate (green before t) does not show up in the conclusion. In a disjunction a v b where a is true and b false the disjunction is true. When, however, the only true component is dropped, what remains is necessarily false. An analogous mistake may be observed in the processing of grue, where the only true component (green) was dropped in the conclusion. — As a potent criterion for correct inductions a check of the necessity of the conclusions is recommended.The author is indebted to Prof. Curt Christian for valuable suggestions.     

Indeterminiertheit,Iterabilität und Intentionalität

In his recent paper Indeterminacy, empiricism, and the first person John R. Searle tries to refute Willard V. O. Quine's famous indeterminacy of translation thesis by arguing that this thesis is in fact areductio ad absurdum of Quine's own linguistic behaviorism. Searle accuses Quine of being (irrationally) antimentalistic and suggests that the absurdity of Quine's thesis might be avoided if a full-fledged intentionality were tolerated in the debate on meaning. — This anti-Quinean approach in some respects reminds of the improbable debate between Searle and Jacques Derrida ten years ago, when Derrida had split and deferred intentionality by showing that the essential iterability of signs inevitably infects every intentional act with an unremovable non-presence.In this paper it is argued that Searle's attacks on Quine and Derrida have both failed — and that there are structural similarities between these two failures which reveal some interesting parallels between Quine's and Derrida's philosophy.     

Computer content analysis of sex differences in the language of children

This study presents empirical procedures for the collection and content analysis of the oral language of kindergarten children. The analysis technique used material and machines available to most researchers. The results of the analysis of language samples of 144 randomly selected children from the entire kindergarten class of the Ithaca, New York, school system showed that boys produced significantly more language than did the girls as well as significantly more references to aggression, self, time, space, quantity, fears, good, act of oral communication, negation, and affirmation, and asked more questions of the examiner than did the girls. The girls made significantly more female references than did the boys. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Care and the dynamics of social world

The concept of social world is formulated for the purpose of deepening our understanding of the dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and care in interpersonal interaction. World is defined as an irreducible subject-object polarity.Social world is the extremely fragile environment within which people meet, and is easily destroyed. With special attention to family and church life, the conditions for maintaining or losing this environment are examined. Three levels of social world are defined. On the highest level, mutual care, rather than shared opinion, is seen as the factor that facilitates the preservation of social world in the face of world-threatening issues.     

The Deep Structure of Group Life: Unconscious Dimensions

There is a reconsideration and renaissance of interest in expanded conceptions of unconscious processes as they affect individuals and groups (Grotstein, 1999). Recent focus on social unconscious (Hopper, 1996) and cultural unconscious processes (Henderson, 1988) and the nature of intersubjectivity (Harwood and Pines, 1998) raise questions about the location of group analysis. This paper considers the deep structure of group life by examining four functions of the unconscious: repressive, conservative, creative, and mythopoetic (Ellenberger, 1970). On an individual level of analysis, these functions are equated respectively with formative ideas about the: personal–subjective, social–political, intersubjective–cultural and collective–objective unconscious. Group level analogs, as they develop and affect groups and their members, are explored as synthetic, shared, symbolicy and synchronous unconscious processes.     

What is non-fregean in the semantics of Wittgenstein'sTractatus and why?

From J.M. Bocheski's Rady starego filozofa [Advice of the old philosopher]: 6. Pytaj sie Zawsze (i) co to znaczy? i (ii) dlaczego? [Ask always (i) what does it mean? and (ii) why?]     

Distance and fusion in Robinson Jeffers' “the purse-seine” and other poems

Distance and fusion are fundamental ideas in Bowenian thinking, especially as expressed in the dynamic of distancing and pursuing. In this paper I have used these ideas as a means to briefly examine a short selection of Robinson Jeffers' poetry, which provides us with a literary example of these concepts in action.My thanks to M. K. Lane and the anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of this article for their many suggestions, especially to the reviewer who helped me better distinguish between distance and fusion, and intimacy and autonomy.     

Where “Sex” Is Born(e): Intersexed Births and the Social Urgency of Heterosexuality

Our beloved genders of the present moment are neither universal nor trans-historical presences in the world. The specific gender order which we employ today is the legacy of a particular cultural and political history, and there is still a great deal at stake in preserving it. As a graduate student I stumbled upon the topic of intersexuality a few years ago and found myself enthralled with its implications. Continuing to present itself inspite of all our scientific knowledge about the supposed immutability of female and male, intersexuality disrupts the gender order. The response to this disruption has been swift and terrible: from the intersexed infants who enter our world everyday are carved (literally and figuratively) supposedly normal boys and girls (mostly girls). The following exposition represents a pre-fieldwork (theoretical) stage in my current research and attempts to demonstrate that medical authorities manage intersex cases as they do in order to stabilize the always precarious institution of heterosexuality.     

Is “some-other-time” sometimes better than “sometime” for proving partial correctness of programs?

The main result of this paper belongs to the field of the comparative study of program verification methods as well as to the field called nonstandard logics of programs. We compare the program verifying powers of various well-known temporal logics of programs, one of which is the Intermittent Assertions Method, denoted as Bur. Bur is based on one of the simplest modal logics called S5 or sometime-logic. We will see that the minor change in this background modal logic increases the program verifying power of Bur. The change can be described either technically as replacing the reflexive version of S5 with an irreflexive version, or intuitively as using the modality some-other-time instead of sometime. Some insights into the nature of computational induction and its variants are also obtained.This project was supported by the Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, Grant No. 1810.     

Blueprints and Recipes: Gendered Metaphors for Genetic Medicine

In the face of documented difficulties in the public understanding of genetics, new metaphors have been suggested. The language of information coding and processing has become deeply entrenched in the public representation of genetics, and some critics have found fault in the blueprint metaphor, a variant of the dominant theme. They have offered the language of the recipe as a preferable metaphor. The metaphors of the blueprint and the recipe are compared in respect to their deterministic implications and other associations. The likelihood of the recipe metaphor framing cognition in more useful ways is called into question.     

“Soul-making” in a schizophrenic saint

Soul-making (cf. Jung and Hillman) is the process of integrating spiritual and bodily imagery into an intimated wholeness transcending conscious comprehension. Pierre Janet's case of the psychotic mystic, Madeleine, reveals that the patient had been making her own-soul even though his theory had no provision for soul. Janet's soul-stripping theory is contrasted with a soul-making approach, primarily in their respective interpretations of Madeleine's altered states of consciousness. Religious ecstasy is a stretching of soul, an expansion into the realm of spirit, which requires a subsequent descent into and reconciliation with tradition, society, outer world, and body.     

"Solar love": Nietzsche,Merleau-Ponty and the fortunes of perception

Both Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty repudiate the mirror view of perception and embrace what Nietzsche refers to as solar love or creative perception. I argue that Merleau-Ponty thinks of this type of perception primarily in terms of convergence and Nietzsche in terms of divergence. I then show how, contrary to their own emphases, Merleau-Ponty's notion of flesh and Nietzsche's idea of chaos suggest that convergence and divergence are abstractions from an ontologically prior realm of hybrid perceptions. In this realm, each perception is shot through with the others, simultaneously inside and outside one another. The creative tension among these perceptions continually produces new perspectives or voices, that is, a realm whose very being is metamorphosis. Moreover, this realm of hybrid perceptions suggests a political principle that might prove attractive for communities in an age of diversity and cultural hybridity.     

Moral Philosophy and the Ontology of Relations

The essay undertakes to explore the possibilities of mutually fruitful dialogue between moral philosophy and ontology, in particular, the ontology of relations. The latter copes with the question of how relations relate, whereas moral philosophy often ignores the ontological implications of such crucial relations as love and interpersonality. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the ontology of relations is discussed. Second, various examples are analysed. From this, a conception of relation instantiation emerges, according to which to determine which relation actually obtains, one has to take into account (a) the context, (b) the specific content or meaning of the relation, and (c) some action or decision or mode of existence of the relata. This conception suggests that relation instantiation cannot be explained by a single formula. By the help of this conception, Hume's thesis of the identity of killing relations between human and nonhuman beings is questioned. Then, the relation of love is analysed. It is shown that love as a moral relation is perfectly explicable in terms of ontology. Moreover, its essence is best captured by the interrelation of the particulars, the relation of love as a universal, and by the relating action of the particulars. Finally, the alleged relation of universal fraternity (interpersonality as such), linking up each human being to all other human beings, is discussed.     

Gender Stereotypes in Japanese Television Advertisements

The aim of this study was to reveal gender portrayal types in Japanese television advertisements through content analysis. Five hundred and thirty-one adult main characters were coded for sex, age, ethnic background, credibility, role, place, dress, background, persuasion type, camera work, camera angle, product type, target, and sex of voice-over. Five types were found by performing quick cluster analysis: beautiful and wise housewives, young ladies attracting people's attention, young celebrities, middle- and old-aged people enjoying private time, and middle-aged worker bee. The first three were mainly women and the latter two were mainly men. The results indicate that in Japanese television advertisements men and women are portrayed differently, and the differences correspond with traditional gender stereotypes.     

Depression and Anxiety in Persons with Parkinson's Disease With and Without “On–Off” Phenomena

On–off phenomena in Parkinson's disease (PD) are unpredictable motor fluctuations associated with long-term levodopa use. Mood fluctuations have been found to coincide with the motor fluctuations in that depression and anxiety increase while the person with PD is in the off state. What has been relatively unexplored is whether those persons with PD who have on–off phenomena differ psychologically in fundamental ways from those who do not have on–off phenomena. In the present study, depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed in 36 persons with PD (n = 14 with on–off phenomena, n = 22 without on–off phenomena). All those with on–off phenomena were assessed in their on state. Those persons with PD with on–off phenomena had significantly higher levels of anxiety than those without on–off phenomena. However, both groups, regardless of on–off status, were mildly depressed. Neurobiological interpretations of the results implicate the locus coeruleus in the pathogenesis of both on–off phenomena and anxiety, whereas psychological interpretations of the results involve the issues of learned helplessness and control over health symptoms in PD.     

Still the Heart of Darkness: The Ebola Virus and the Meta-Narrative of Disease in The Hot Zone

Still the Heart of Darkness analyzes Richard Preston's best-selling account of an Ebola virus outbreak in Reston, Virginia in 1989. Through a textual examination of The Hot Zone, this essay demonstrates how Preston grounds his narrative about the threat of rare emerging viruses from the third world in terms of the colonialist discourse about Africa as the white man's grave, most notably Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. By foregrounding previous outbreaks in Africa, Preston simultaneously darkens its landscape and inscribes the Ebola filovirus as an external biological threat to Americans in a post-Cold War world with porous borders.     

The endorsement of irrational beliefs in a general clinical population

Burgess' Attitude and Belief Scale, a measure of Ellis' irrational beliefs, was administered to a large sample of outpatients. All 13 subscales demonstrate very adequate internal consistency. A factor analysis yielded one factor accounting for 83% of the variance, which was labeled irrationality. Clients endorsed focused items more than overgeneralized items, self-referential items more than non-self-referential items, and preferential items more than irrational items. Clients also received higher scores on the irrational process of demandingness than they did on the irrational process of awfulizing, self-worth and low frustration tolerance. The results were consistent with new formulations in Rational-Emotive theory. Suggestions were made for the construction of measures of irrational beliefs.     

Self and others in “private language”

The aim of this paper is to restore the interdependent or complementary relationship between self and others against the universalistic one (as I call it) that Kant, for example, once insisted on, by reexamining the concept of so-called private language. I shall consider some views in speech act theory and pragmatics, since there has often been discussion about such a private occurrence as the speaker's sincerity. For example, Jürgen Habermas situates it in the speaker's internal nature as will be seen later. In my opinion, alter ego is an ego because we can empathize (einfühlen) with it, and yet it is alter ego because it has some private experiences which we cannot perfectly comprehend.