Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Mental Causation and the Mind-Body Problem

Marx may be taken to hold that productive forces (e.g. the steam engine) explain productive relations (e.g. capitalism) more than the other way on, and that productive relations explain superstructures (e.g. the legal system) more than the other way on. There are no satisfactory standard causal understandings of these claims about explanatory primacy. That is, no standard causal understanding saves Marx from the traditional objection that relations very greatly affect forces, and superstructures very greatly affect relations. One satisfactorily articulated attempt to save Marx has been the attempt to understand the claims teleologically. Three such understandings can be distinguished, but they do not work. The first fails since it attempts to explain events by way of abstract objects. The second fails since it attempts to explain a thing by means of that thing. The third fails for a related reason. Each understanding also fails for another reason as fundamental. So‐called teleological explanations are in fact claims that standard causal explanations exist, which relevant explanations conflict with the ruling idea of Marx's philosophy, that history is somehow independent of men's consciousness and wills. There may be no evidence that Marx himself intended historical materialism to be understood teleologically. There may be evidence against.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Deficit Model,the Diffusion Model and Publics in STS

The start of the twenty-first century witnessed the flourishing of both the biosciences (particularly genomics) and initiatives around public engagement in science, particularly in the UK and USA. STS researchers have both followed and fuelled this latter trend. Hence, it may be helpful to review the genealogy of these recent developments and of STS concern for the publics of science. This provides a way of assessing whether STS activities have been contributing to making the sciences more open and accountable to their publics. One trail returns to the institutionalisation of Public Understanding of Science (PUS) in the mid-1980s. The critique of this movement by STS scholars through reference to the deficit model (of public understanding of science) also figures here. However, less attention has been given to other modes of conceptualising science and publics, including what Cooter and Pumfrey label as the ‘diffusionist’ or ‘diffusion’ model (of scientific knowledge), which they contend entrenched traditional views of scientific knowledge and of publics as receivers of such knowledge. More recently, investigations of the making of science in diverse locations, attention to multiplicity and co-production have taken STS in new directions. Nevertheless, the legacies of both the deficit and diffusion models of science and publics continue to influence STS and its ‘regimes of truth’. Questions remain around STS researchers' persistent failure to acknowledge the diffusion model, in particular, and the consequent retrenchment of traditional views of how science works, limiting prospects for substantial public engagement and more open, democratic modes of science.     

Between the Rock and a Hard Place: In Support of (something like) a Reformed View of the Eucharist

In this article, Calvin's eucharistic theology is re-read in the light of Aquinas, Augustine, Irenaeus, Luther, Jean-Luc Marion, Graham Ward and Catherine Pickstock. It is found to have great strengths, sucessfully avoiding both static ideas of Christ's presence and individual nominalism, while allowing a prominent place for the Holy Spirit and room for the believer's faith. Calvin took account of the doctrine of the Ascension quite differently from Luther by stressing Christ's bodily absence from this world. The article argues that this dialectic of presence and absence would gain from giving it a temporal dimension, giving more weight to eschatology.     

Conscious Experience and the Non-Triviality Principle

Philosophical Studies -     

Logical Self-Reference as a Model for Conscious Experience

The structure of autoreferential statements that describe (or serve as a logical model for) the human conscious experience is analyzed. Autoreferential statements are introduced by autoreferential definitions, such as a=F(a, x), where F is a Boolean function and x is some atomic statement describing the content of the experience, or by analogous systems of inter-related definitions, such as a=F(b, x, y) and b=G(a, x, z). It is argued that only "noncreative" (systems of) definitions introduce statements that describe conscious experience, the noncreativeness meaning that no statement with non-tautological content can be derived from these definitions. The structure of such (systems of) definitions is comprehensively characterized in a series of theorems. A potential of the model in addressing empirical data is illustrated by applying it to the choice between two alternatives in the absence of a preference criterion. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

Clients' Experiences of Obstructive Silence: Integrating Conscious Reports and Analytic Theories

The psychodynamic literature has associated clients' silences in psychotherapy sessions with a variety of processes. These processes include wishes to merge with the therapist, to gain control in session, to communicate the unsayable, to express helplessness and, most frequently, the intertwined processes of resistance and regression. Experiences of obstructive silence—that is, moments in which clients detached from the process of therapeutic inquiry—were examined in this study. A grounded theory analysis was used to explore clients' experiences of silences in psychotherapy across psychotherapeutic modalities. Two types of obstructive pausing processes, Disengaged pauses and Interactional pauses, were identified. The implications of delineating conscious aspects of these complex experiences are stressed and techniques are suggested for therapeutic intervention in moments of experienced threat.     

Place and World: On Jeff Malpas’ Second Edition of Place and Experience

ABSTRACT

Jeff Malpas’ book Experience and Place has become a significant landmark in philosophy. I take the publication of the revised and extended second edition of the book in 2018 as an opportunity to reflect on some key issues in Malpas’ thought. After briefly outlining Malpas’ commitment to topophilia and topoanalysis, I address, in the first part of my essay, the relation of place to subjectivity and normativity, pointing out certain shortcomings or ambiguities in Malpas’ account. I also critically discuss the omission of an account of migration, or, rather, immigration, which seems called for, especially if we realize that the inhabited place always comes with its limit or border, which implies that there is also a view from outside, and that we have moral obligations to the stranger and/or immigrant coming into our place from outside. In the second part of my essay, I engage Malpas’ argument according to which Heidegger ‘derived’ space from time. By an analysis of relevant texts in Heidegger, I show that this argument does not hold.     

Epistemic Warrants and Higher‐Order Theories of Conscious Perception

We present a new account of perceptual consciousness, one which gives due weight to the epistemic commitment of normal perception in familiar circumstances. The account is given in terms of a higher‐order attitude for which the subject has an immediate perceptual epistemic warrant in the form of an appropriate first‐order perception. We develop our account in contrast to Rosenthal's higher‐order account, rejecting his view of consciousness in virtue of so‐called ‘targetless’ higher‐order states. We explain the key notion of an immediate perceptual warrant and show both that it requires the content of the higher‐order attitude to match that of the first‐order perception, and also that it gives a new perspective on the intimate relationship, rightly emphasised by Rosenthal, between consciousness and a subject's testimony as to ‘how it is with her’.     

A Rock or a Hard Place: The Foot‐in‐the‐Face Technique for Inducing Compliance Without Pressure1

Situations in which the formulation of a target request is preceded by another request are a frequent field of research for social psychologists. So far, however, increased compliance with the target request has been found in conditions in which the initial request was either easier than the target request and was fulfilled (i.e., foot‐in‐the‐door technique) or more difficult and was rejected (i.e., door‐in‐the‐face technique). In the series of 3 field studies presented in this article, it is shown that increased compliance with the final request can also be observed when the initial request has more or less the same degree of difficulty as the final request.     

Performances of Faith: A Relation Between Conscious and Unconscious Organizations of Faith

Performances of faith are found in ordinary and extraordinary stories, behavior, and rituals, and they are inextricably yoked to unconscious and conscious processes and organizations of faith experience. This article explores the relation between unconscious and conscious processes and organizations of faith. The claim is that the unconscious system represents unformulated experiences of faith that are affectively and relationally organized. In human development these unconscious organizations of faith experience are partially transformed by a person's conscious and self-reflective use of symbols and language. At the same time, conscious and self-reflective organizations of faith, manifested in narratives, rituals, and use of other symbolic media, continue to be shaped by unconscious processes and unconscious configurations of faith. An appreciation of the dynamic interaction between unconscious and conscious processes and organizations of faith focuses one's attention to the complexity of human performances of faith in ministry.     

Empirical Constraints on Computational Theories of Metaphor: Comments on Indurkhya

Empirical analyses have provided some important constraints for computational theories of metaphor. Three such constraints relate to (1) the similar processing time for literal and metaphorical language, (2) the time-limited processing of many metaphors, and (3) the dissociation of metaphor comprehension and appreciation. Indurkhya's (1986, 1987) model is discussed with respect to these issues.     

The Timing of Conscious Experience: A Critical Review and Reinterpretation of Libet''s Research

An extended examination of Libet's works led to a comprehensive reinterpretation of his results. According to this reinterpretation, the Minimum Train Duration of electrical brain stimulation should be considered as the time needed to create a brain stimulus efficient for producing conscious sensation and not as a basis for inferring the latency for conscious sensation of peripheral origin. Latency for conscious sensation with brain stimulation may occurafterthe Minimum Train Duration. Backward masking with cortical stimuli suggests a 125–300 ms minimum value for the latency for conscious sensation of threshold skin stimuli. Backward enhancement is not suitable for inferring this latency. For determining temporal relations between stimuli that correspond to subjects' reports, theendof cerebral Minimum Train Duration should be used as reference, rather than its onset. Results of coupling peripheral and cortical stimuli are explained by a latency after the cortical Minimum Train Duration, having roughly the same duration as the latency for supraliminal skin stimuli. Results of coupling peripheral stimuli and stimuli to medial lemniscus (LM) are explained by a shorter LM latency and/or a longer peripheral latency. This interpretation suggests a 230 ms minimum value for the latency for conscious sensation of somatosensory near-threshold stimuli. The backward referral hypothesis, as formulated by Libet, should not be retained. Long readiness potentials preceding spontaneous conscious or nonconscious movements suggest that both kinds of movement are nonconsciously initiated. The validity of Libet's measures of W and M moments (Libet et al., 1983a) is questionable due to problems involving latencies, training, and introspective distinction of W and M. Veto of intended actions may be initially nonconscious but dependent on conscious awareness.     

拓展经验：论舒斯特曼在当前实用主义中的地位

作者在本文中梳理了当代实用主义史,通过把实用主义区分为语言实用主义和身体实用主义,指出舒斯特曼在目前身体实用主义中所处的地位。他通过研究舒斯特曼的实用主义关学,在参照实用主义整体视野的前提下,得出了舒斯特曼的实用主义是对古典实用主义者,特别是杜威等人的经验概念的继承和发展的思想。他认为,舒斯特曼的实用主义美学,着意强调身体美学之“经验”的基础地位,他的实用主义是把经验和实践中的至善论相结合的身体实用主义。     

Review of Orlando Crowcroft, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rock in a Hard Place: Music and Mayhem in the Middle East</Emphasis>

This book by experienced journalist and metal fan Orlando Crowcroft is a must read for anyone curious about counter-culture in the Middle East. It contains six country studies (Lebanon, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria) in which Crowcroft’s interviews with musicians are the key elements. With the knowledge of a music connoisseur, he guides the reader in the subcultural music scenes and movements in these countries, using the life stories of musicians as the red thread.     

A Turing Test for Computational and Associative Theories of Learning

A Turing test is proposed to evaluate current computational and associative models of learning, and to guide theoretical developments. This test requires a specification of the procedures to which the model applies, a sampling of procedures and response measures, and an objective way to determine the difficulty of discriminating the responses of the model from the responses of the animal. Scalar timing theory is used as an example of a well-developed computational theory of timing that involves addition, multiplication, division, and sampling. The behavioral theory of timing is used as an example of a well-developed associative theory of timing that involves state transitions and strengthening of connections. A Turing test provides a way to evaluate such theories.     

Between Addition and Difference: A Place for Religious Understanding in a World of Science

Among contemporary religious believers, some follow in the footsteps of Newton, allowing their religious understanding to fill in gaps left by the sciences. Others take a more Wittgensteinian approach, discretely separating religious from scientific ways of thinking. Because neither of these relatively irenic positions captures the important element of cultural reform that is prevalent in so much of the religious life of the past, George Lakoff's recent work in cognitive studies is used to suggest ways that religious ideas may be used to challenge and enrich scientific thought. A scrutiny of Richard Dawkins's biological analyses of human behavior reveals the distorting limitations of exclusively scientific understanding, thereby clearing conceptual space for genuinely religious values, actions, responsibilities, and forms of human life.