The individual and nothingness (Stavrogin: a Russian interpretation)

This study is an attempt to reconstruct and sum up philosophical interpretations of Stavrogin, the main hero of the classic Dostoevsky’s novel “The Devils”, given by the outstanding Russian religious thinkers in the twentieth century. The author emphasizes that, however different can be their philosophical premises, the discussed interpretations of Dostoevsky’s hero are compatible and complementary. Confronting and, above all, synthesizing different points of view, he tries to grasp the basic historiosophical, anthropological and religious ideas of Russian renaissance.     

Soul-making theodicy and compatibilism: new problems and a new interpretation

In the elaboration of his soul-making theodicy, John Hick agrees with a controversial point made by compatibilists Antony Flew and John Mackie against the free will defense. Namely, Hick grants that God could have created humans such that they would be free to sin but would, in fact, never do so. In this paper, I identify three previously unrecognized problems that arise from his initial concession to, and ultimate rejection of, compatibilism. The first problem stems from the fact that in two important texts, Hick rejects compatibilism (after having endorsed it as effective against the free will defense) for different and seemingly contradictory reasons. His various explanations of soul-making theodicy’s relationship to compatibilism are therefore in conflict. The second problem is closely related to the first. It turns out that when Hick’s concession to compatibilism is closely examined, soul-making theodicy appears unable to explain the existence of moral evil. The final problem consists in understanding why Hick would have made any concessions to compatibilism in the first place given that he ultimately opts for incompatibilist free will. After identifying these three problems, I develop a distinctive way in which to interpret Hick’s soul-making theodicy that solves the first two. This distinctive interpretation, moreover, has the added benefit of solving another, well-recognized problem that has long plagued Hick’s exposition: the problem of the hypnotist metaphor. Finally, I address the third problem by suggesting a rationale for Hick’s initial concession to the compatibilists.     

孔子新诠——对《论语》作为一个哲学解释学文本的解读

Communicating with Confucius based on our own hermeneutical context, and reading the Analects as a text of philosophical hermeneutics, it can be concluded that as an epochal thinker, the contribution of Confucius’ thought is that it initiated a humanistic moral ideal with cultural upbringing as its core. Based on this consciousness of humanistic moral ideal, Confucius thought and dealt positively with the human existential plight and social political problems that he faced during his own time, and his thought is more creative than conservative. Translated by Mi Li from Guanzi Xuekan 맜子学刊 (Guanzi Jouranl), 2006, (1): 69–74     

A multi-session interpretation modification program: changes in interpretation and social anxiety symptoms

Previous research suggests that socially anxious individuals interpret ambiguous social information in a more threatening manner compared to non-anxious individuals. Recently, studies have experimentally modified interpretation and shown that this subsequently affected anxiety in non-anxious individuals. If similar procedures can modify interpretation biases in socially anxious individuals, they may lead to a reduction in social anxiety symptoms. In the current study, we examined the effect of a computerized Interpretation Modification Program (IMP) on interpretation bias and social anxiety symptoms. Twenty-seven socially anxious individuals were randomly assigned to the IMP or a control condition. Participants completed eight computer sessions over four weeks. The IMP modified interpretation by providing positive feedback when participants made benign interpretations and negative feedback in response to threat interpretations. The IMP successfully decreased threat interpretations, increased benign interpretations, and decreased social anxiety symptoms compared to the control condition. Moreover, changes in benign interpretation mediated IMP's effect on social anxiety. This initial trial suggests that interpretation modification may have clinical utility when applied as a multi-session intervention.     

Conditioning the unconditioned response: modification of the rabbit's (Oryctolagus cuniculus) unconditioned nictitating membrane response

Conditioning-specific reflex modification (CRM) occurs when classical conditioning modifies responding to an unconditioned stimulus (US) in the absence of a conditioned stimulus (CS). Three experiments monitored rabbit nictitating (Oryctolagus cuniculus) membrane unconditioned responses to 5 intensities and 4 durations of periorbital electrical stimulation before and after CS or US manipulation. CRM occurred after 12 days of CS-US pairings but not following unpaired CS/US presentations or restraint. CRM survived CS-alone and CS/US-unpaired extinction of the conditioned response (CR) but not presentations of the US alone, although CRs remained intact. Thus, CRs could be weakened without eliminating CRM and CRM could be weakened without eliminating CRs. Data indicate CRM is a reliable, associative effect that is more than a generalized CR and may not be explained by habituation, stimulus generalization, contextual conditioning, or bidirectional conditioning.     

Auditory stimulus control in pigeons: Jenkins and Harrison (1960) revisited

Pigeons were trained to peck a key in the presence of a 1000-Hz tone on a variable-interval one-minute schedule of reinforcement. One group was trained with an illuminated key; the other was trained in a totally dark chamber. During a generalization test on tonal frequency, subjects trained and tested with the key illuminated produced rather shallow gradients around the training value; subjects trained and tested in the dark produced steeper generalization gradients. These data replicate Jenkins and Harrison's (1960) finding that tone acquires relatively little control over responding and demonstrate that this absence of control is a function of the presence of the keylight.     

Size constancy in children: a new interpretation

Existing evidence indicates that there are differences between children and adults in size constancy when observation distances are large. Findings are reported which suggest that this phenomenon is based on a difference in the accessing of proximal stimulus information, which, in the case of size, refers to visual angle subtended. Age differences were found when a traditional size constancy task was used, but these differences disappeared when all the comparison objects subtended the same visual angle. Since this finding demonstrates that young children can make accurate size matches, it is suggested that the underconstancy previously reported is not necessarily the result of children's inability to use fully certain cues to distance. Rather, the findings suggest that children access proximal stimulus information more spontaneously than do adults.     

The right to parenthood: an argument for a narrow interpretation

The paper argues for two kinds of limitations on the right of parenthood. First, it claims that the right to parenthood does not entail a right to have as many children as one desires. This conclusion follows from the standard justifications for the right to parenthood, none of which establishes the need to grant special protection to having as many children as one desires. Second, with respect to the right to receive assistance from the state in IVF, it is suggested that the state should also be allowed to take non-medical considerations into account in determining whether or not an applicant is entitled to this service, particularly in cases where the applicant seems to lack mothering ability.     

The computerized Tower of Hanoi: a new form of administration and suggestions for interpretation

A computerized version of the Tower of Hanoi with a new form of administration was administered to two different groups, 15 men and 22 women, who were university students reporting normal psychological histories, and 24 traumatically brain-injured patients (20 men and 4 women). Scores on this test for both groups can be interpreted as an index of ability to solve problems and of learning strategies. Men and women scored differently on the task, i.e., women used different strategies than men to solve problems.     

若即若离:马祖道一禅法别说

马祖禅法可以凝练地概括为"即此用"、"离此用"与喝打三个层次."即此用"是即色用,"离此用"是即心用,喝打出入即离.此一概括是后人对马祖禅法理解逐步系统化、精致化的结果.     

The effect of a conditioned fear inhibitor (CS-) during response prevention upon extinction of an avoidance response

Pairing a Pavlovian safety signal (CS—) with a response prevention period was contrasted with other response prevention procedures to determine relative effectiveness for the elimination of learned avoidance behavior. After acquiring a one-way avoidance response, five groups of ten rats received various blocking or control treatments and were then compared on extinction performance. The four blocking treatments included blocking paired with a safety signal; blocking only; blocking paired with a novel stimulus; and blocking paired with a preexposed noncontingent tone. The fifth group served as a handling control. Compared to the handling control, all four blocking groups reached extinction criterion in fewer trials. Further, the safety signal group extinguished faster than the blocking only group or the blocking with noncontingent tone group. Results were viewed as an indication of the potential efficacy of pairing-conditioned fear-inhibiting cues with response prevention procedures for the elimination of fear-motivated behavior. Implications for behavioral therapy techniques were discussed.     

"The" interpretation(s) of conditionals

Recent studies indicate that a vast majority of people judge the probability of a conditional as equivalent to the conditional probability of . This means that in evaluating the applicability of a conditional people do not seem to take into account situations in which the antecedent is false. This has been taken as evidence against the model theory of Johnson-Laird and Byrne (2002). This theory, however, claims that the conditional interpretation in which false-antecedent cases are relevant is only one of many possible interpretations of "if." We present new evidence that confirms this flexibility of the interpretive system. When people are primed by thinking (1) about truth and the difference between the and or (2) are invited to judge which situations are consistent with the conditional, they are more likely to select a probability estimate that takes into account the false-antecedent cases.     

Implicit serial learning: Questions inspired by Hebb (1961)

Implicit serial learning occurs when indirect measures such as transfer reveal learning of a repeating sequence even when subjects are not informed ofthe repeating sequence, are not asked to learn it, and do not become of aware of it. This phenomenon is reminiscent of an experiment by Hebb(1961), who studied the repetition of sequences in a serial recall task. Two experiments investigated the relation between implicit serial learning and ideas about learning forwarded by Hebb and others who used his method. The experiments showed that implicit serial learning occurs even when the repeating sequence is intermixed with randomly generated sequences instead of being repeated continuously, that the organization of the sequence into regularly or irregularly grouped subsequences determines the extent of learning, and that the repetition effect observed does not depend on subjects' ability to recognize the repetition.