疾病的附魅与祛魅--为纪念苏珊·桑塔格而作

用马克斯·韦伯的祛魅理论来读解苏珊·桑塔格在<疾病的隐喻>一书中表述的反对隐喻、回到疾病本身的观点,探讨积极意义与局限性所在,并以此作为对这位当代美国最著名的"公共知识分子"的纪念.     

Framing public policy and prevention of chronic violence in American youths

Metaphors can both inspire and mislead the public. Current metaphors for youth violence are inconsistent with scientific evidence about how chronic violence develops and evoke inaccurate or harmful reactions. Popular, problematic metaphors include superpredator, quarantining the contagious, corrective surgery, man as computer, vaccine, and chronic disease. Four new metaphors that more accurately reflect the science of child development are proposed to shape the field. Preventive dentistry offers a lifelong system of universal, selected, and indicated intervention policies. Cardiovascular disease offers concepts of distal risk factors, proximal processes, equifinality and multifinality, and long-term prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's public health model focuses on injury and the victim to elicit popular support. Public education for illiteracy offers concepts of long-term universal education coupled with specialized help for high-risk youths and goes beyond metaphor to represent a truly applicable framework. Research is proposed to test the scientific merit for and public receptivity to these metaphors.     

The Role of Working Memory and Divided Attention in Metaphor Interpretation

Although several types of figurative language exist, neuropsychological tests of non-literal language have focused on proverbs. Metaphors in the form X is (a) Y (e.g., The body’s immunological response is a battle against disease.) place a lower demand on language skills and are more easily manipulated for novelty than proverbs. Forty healthy participants completed the Metaphor Interpretation Test (developed by the authors). The task includes 20 items chosen from a list of metaphors that were rated on several scales (e.g. imagery, aptness) in a study by Katz et al. (Metaphor Symb Act 3(4):191–214, 1988). Participants were asked to rate the familiarity and provide an explanation of each metaphor. A scoring system was developed to categorize answers into: abstract complete (AC), abstract partial (AP), concrete (CT), and other/unrelated (OT) types. Participants also completed short-term memory and divided attention tests. Overall, participants produced 56 % AC, 25.38 % AP, 7.88 % CT, and 10.88 % OT responses. It was found that a measure of verbal short-term memory span was the best predictor of performance on this task (adjusted \(R^{2}= .369\) ). It appears that short-term memory span, not working memory or divided attention, contributes most to providing abstract responses in explaining metaphors. This is in line with the idea that when one accesses the semantic network associated with a novel metaphor, one must hold this information in mind long enough to search for and link similar cognitive networks.     

The creative process and psychoanalytic insight

The paper looks at the prevalence of audio-visual culture and how it is endemic in our everyday lives. It explores how popular culture emerges in the consulting room and some of the dilemmas posed for the therapist. It goes on to consider how popular culture connects to narratives, dreams and the formation of images in the clinical context. Some clinical vignettes explore audio-visual material in relation to their possible therapeutic message. One suggestion is made that the prevalence of popular culture could intensify anxieties associated with watching and looking and at the same time increase our desires to dismiss and submerge these anxieties. Popular culture in the consulting room reflects a world outside. Psychodynamic psychotherapy and the Media Arts can bring each other into ‘mutual illumination’.     

Evangelism and Popular Culture

This article reports on the work and the deliberations of the United Evangelical Mission's Working Group on Evangelism and Popular Culture. Working with rough heuristic categories, the group identifies Protestantism's discomfort with popular cultural expressions and finds it rooted in Protestant history and modernist cultural theory. Using a postmodernist approach that looks at ways of meaning making in popular culture, the group calls for theological discernment and the identification of the work of the Holy Spirit within popular cultural expressions. Following J. K. A. Smith, liturgies are identified as shaping human identities. Secular, thick liturgies are often far more influential than Christian thin practices. Popular culture is a mirror of groundbreaking social change, but classical Protestant churches still follow the organizational principles of the 19th century. The group argues that to evangelize within popular culture, these churches will have to change their shape and structures, becoming missional but not consumer‐driven.     

Perceptual robustness of the nonrelationship between psychopathology and popular responses on the Hand Test and the Rorschach

A Hand Test Popular response is developed using 106 normal subjects and Rorschach's traditional "one-in-three" criterion. Six popular responses were derived. Neither the newly established Hand Test Popular response nor the Rorschach Popular discriminated psychosis from nonpsychosis, but as expected, Rorschach chi + % and Rorschach WSum6 were significant, and the Hand Test Bizarre (BIZ) score approached significance. Both the Rorschach Popular and the newly developed Hand Test Popular await further elucidation.     

Perceptual Robustness of the Nonrelationship Between Psychopathology and Popular Responses on the Hand Test and the Rorschach

A Hand Test Popular response is developed using 106 normal subjects and Rorschach's traditional "one-in-three" criterion. Six popular responses were derived. Neither the newly established Hand Test Popular response nor the Korschach Popular discriminated psychosis from nonpsychosis. but as expected, Rorschach X+% and Rorschach WSum6 were significant, and the Hand Test Bizarre (BIZ) score approached significance. Both the Rorschach Popular and the newly developed Hand Test Popular await further elucidation.     

Berkeley on Inconceivability and Impossibility

Contrary to a popular reading of his modal epistemology, Berkeley does not hold that inconceivability entails impossibility, and he cannot therefore argue the impossibility of mind‐independent matter by appealing to facts about what we cannot conceive. Berkeley is explicit about this constraint on his metaphysical argumentation, and, I argue, does respect it in practice. Popular mythology about the ‘master argument’ notwithstanding, the only passages in which he might plausibly seem to employ the principle that inconceivability entails impossibility are those that argue for the inseparability of primary from secondary qualities. However, an alternative reading of these texts is available that is both consistent with Berkeley's express modal epistemology and credible in its own right.     

Metaphor and Persuasive Communication: A Multifunctional Approach

Metaphors are pervasive in both mass communication and interpersonal exchanges and can play an important role in persuasion. Metaphor serves multiple functions in persuasive communication, and the effect of metaphor on persuasion is potentially mediated by multiple psychological process mechanisms. Nevertheless, we propose that past and future research in this area can be organized or grouped into three simple categories. First, metaphorical statements can activate information that is directly applied to the communication topic and thereby influence attitudes toward the communication topic. Second, metaphorical language may influence impressions of the communication source and thereby impact attitudes toward the communication topic. Third, metaphors may affect attitudes toward the communication topic by influencing the direction or amount of elaboration that takes place when recipients process literal statements contained in the communication. A review of past research is organized into these three categories, and proposals for future research in each category are introduced. It is concluded that future research within each of these domains should focus on two related questions: under what conditions does metaphor elicit a given psychological process in the receiver (e.g., attribute mapping, valence transfer), and under what conditions will a given process result in an increase versus decrease in persuasion?     

RALPH WENDELL BURHOE AND THE TWO CULTURES

Abstract. Ralph Burhoe developed his proposals for a social reformation at a time when the “two cultures” debate was still active. It is suggested here that Burhoe, sharing with his contemporaries an understanding of culture that was Western and normative in character, overlooked the distinction between the culture of the elites and popular culture, and consequently between religion as presented by theologians and church officials and popular religion. Therefore, his proposals for the revitalization of traditional religions, even if implemented, would not work. Some contradictions within his own program are pointed out, and the social role of the sciences after World War II, as well as the ambiguities of their presence in the so-called underdeveloped nations, is analyzed. As a positive conclusion, it is suggested that Burhoe's main contribution should be sought, not in his outline for a social reformation, but in his role as an organizer of the dialogue between religion and science.     

How Does the Bible Refer to Christ? Interacting with Augustine the Allegorist

Abstract: Traditional Christianity teaches that the Bible's primary referent is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Christians have long looked for ways to connect every passage in the Bible to the Christ. One venerable strategy is the allegorical or figurative approach of creatively interpreting any unit of biblical meaning, sometimes down to the individual words, as referencing Christ. Alternatively, we might take the biblical narrative itself as referencing Christ and find the connection of smaller units of meaning to Christ through their place in that narrative. My article clarifies this topic through interaction with an exemplary practitioner of the strategy of figurative reading, the Church Father Augustine. I will first explain Augustine's reasons for his hermeneutics, which stem largely from his focus on smaller units of reference such as the word and the sentence. Then I will argue that his reasons are not persuasive if indeed the Bible does refer to Christ at a broader level, the level of narrative.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed of this article:
Alan Cooklin, Brenda McHugh and Neil Dawson (Marlborough Family Service), Family Therapy Basics: An Interactive Distance Learning Package 1994.
Richard R. Kopp, Metaphor Therapy—Using Client Generated Metaphors in Psychotherapy.
Anne McFadyen, Special Care Babies and Their Developing Relationships.
Kedar N. Dwivedi and Ved P. Varma (eds), Meeting the Needs of Ethnic Minority Children.
Suman Fernando (ed.), Mental Health in a Multi-ethnic Society.
Katherine P. H. Young, Understanding Marriage. A Hong Kong Case Study.
Naomi Dale, Working with the Families of Children with Special Needs
Emilia Dowling and Elsie Osborne, The Family and the School. AJoint Systems Approach to Problems with Children.     

Speakers' assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms

In three experiments, we examined why some idioms can be lexically altered and still retain their figurative meanings (e.g., John buttoned his lips about Mary can be changed into John fastened his lips about Mary and still mean "John didn't say anything about Mary"), whereas other idioms cannot be lexically altered without losing their figurative meanings (e.g., John kicked the bucket, meaning "John died," loses its idiomatic meaning when changed into John kicked the pail). Our hypothesis was that the lexical flexibility of idioms is determined by speakers' assumptions about the ways in which parts of idioms contribute to their figurative interpretations as a whole. The results of the three experiments indicated that idioms whose individual semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings (e.g., go out on a limb) were judged as less disrupted by changes in their lexical items (e.g., go out on a branch) than were nondecomposable idioms (e.g., kick the bucket) when their individual words were altered (e.g., punt the pail). These findings lend support to the idea that both the syntactic productivity and the lexical makeup of idioms are matters of degree, depending on the idioms' compositional properties. This conclusion suggests that idioms do not form a unique class of linguistic items, but share many of the properties of more literal language.     

隐喻的具身性与文化性

自从Lakoff和Johnson在《Philosophy in the Flesh —The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought》一书中将认知科学划分为第一代认知科学与第二代认知科学以来,隐喻成为了心理学家、语言学家和哲学家研究的热点领域之一。隐喻的构造基于我们的具身体验,基于我们的文化背景。隐喻的具身性与文化性是相互融合、不可分割的。     

Ego atrophy in addiction illustrated through American cultural music folklore

Popular music is an artifact of folklore that can provide a keen insight into societal complexity. As a window with minimal censorship, it allows access to a subgroup whose motifs are often obfuscated from within and without by defensive and self righteous distortions. Music is a primary source depicting the strivings and failings of a culture or its tributaries. An overview is offered of the American social historical context of substance abuse, as it informs the theory of ego atrophy to conceptualize addiction. In this study, it is appealed to as an aid in the elaboration of addictive behavior. Adjunctively, major themes in movie pictures are referenced as parallel, albeit less refined, indices of stereotype in the culture. Together with societal laws and mores, these markers point to a specific behavioral and value system that typifies the ego of the substance abuser.     

Ego atrophy in addiction illustrated through American cultural music folklore

Popular music is an artifact of folklore that can provide a keen insight into societal complexity. As a window with minimal censorship, it allows access to a subgroup whose motifs are often obfuscated from within and without by defensive and self righteous distortions. Music is a primary source depicting the strivings and failings of a culture or its tributaries. An overview is offered of the American social historical context of substance abuse, as it informs the theory of ego atrophy to conceptualize addiction. In this study, it is appealed to as an aid in the elaboration of addictive behavior. Adjunctively, major themes in movie pictures are referenced as parallel, albeit less refined, indices of stereotype in the culture. Together with societal laws and mores, these markers point to a specific behavioral and value system that typifies the ego of the substance abuser.     

Autumn leaves and old photographs: The development of metaphor preferences

In order to determine the development of preferences for different types of metaphors, a metaphor preferences task was designed. Subjects at seven ages, from 6 through 20 years, received incomplete sentences followed by metaphorical and literal completions, and were asked to select their preferred completions. The pattern of preferences shifted with age. Metaphors based on grounds involving color or shape were preferred by the youngest subjects; metaphors based on movement or sound were preferred by subjects of intermediate age; and metaphors based on nonperceptual, conceptual grounds were preferred by the oldest subjects. At all ages the most frequently chosen metaphors were those based on a combination of two grounds (e.g., color and shape). Preference for literal completions declined with age, but there was an increase in literal selections in the 8th and 10th grades. This study demonstrates the systematic development of aesthetic preferences in the domain of figurative language.     

Iconic Representations and Representative Practices

I develop an account of scientific representations building on Charles S. Peirce's rich, and still underexplored, notion of iconicity. Iconic representations occupy a central place in Peirce's philosophy, in his innovative approach to logic and in his practice as a scientist. Starting from a discussion of Peirce's approach to diagrams, I claim that Peirce's own representations are in line with his formulation of iconicity, and that they are more broadly connected to the pragmatist philosophy he developed in parallel with his scientific work. I then defend the contemporary relevance of Peirce's approach to iconic representations, and specifically argue that Peirce offers a useful ‘third way’ between what Mauricio Suárez has recently described as the ‘analytical’ and ‘practical’ inquiries into the concept of representation. As a philosophically minded scientist and an experimentally inclined philosopher, Peirce never divorced the practice of representing from questions about what counts as a representation. I claim that his account of iconic representations shows that it is the very process of representing, construed as a practice which is coextensive with observing and experimenting, that casts light on the nature of representative relations.     

国外隐喻的理论研究与实践应用

关于隐喻的研究和应用在各个领域都有体现,并且呈现日趋增多的趋势,迄今隐喻已经成为工业心理学研究的一项重要课题。文章介绍了国外隐喻的理论发展、隐喻在各个领域的应用研究,以及总结了目前隐喻研究中所存在的一些问题。隐喻理论从早期的局限于语言修辞的传统理论到具有广泛意义的现代认知理论,从揭示隐喻“靶”事物和“源”事物内在关系的相互作用理论到隐喻对事物逼真性的构造理论,这一系列的概念、理论发展和演化过程充分体现了隐喻在人类的认知和语言发展中的所具有的重要意义。随着理论研究的深入,隐喻在各个领域的应用也越来越普遍,这些领域包括网络技术、工程设计、人机交互、组织行为、企业管理等。然而目前对隐喻应用和研究仍旧存在一些局限性,例如研究者的工作大都局限于描述性和解释性的研究,在使用隐喻思想进行的设计和评价时也仍旧缺乏一个操作性的参照基准,因此更为全面和深入地探讨对于隐喻的进一步研究和应用有十分重要的意义。文章以此为出发点,通过提供隐喻研究和应用一个整体的框架,为进一步研究提供一些参考和启示。