What’s Wrong with the Adequacy-argument? A Pragmatic Diagnosis

When confronted with the question of which philosophical conception of religion to consider most adequate, many philosophers appeal to what I call the adequacy-argument: that we should prefer the one that looks most adequate from the perspective of religious believers. In this paper, I provide a critique of the adequacy-argument based on a pragmatic analysis of adequacy-judgments according to which reflective adequacy-judgments are forward-looking, and hence include considerations of the consequences of adopting different judgments as guides for conduct. It is this forward-looking character that is virtually absent within the current adequacy-debate. The major advantage of a pragmatic analysis of adequacy is itself forward-looking: it would enable philosophers of religion to play a more critical and constructive role vis-à-vis religious practices than presently.     

The S-R information stream: Where’s the filter?

Pavlovian conditioning procedures, in which events such as tastes, lights, and sounds become predictors of food, water, and shocks, have been used for studying the role of the information filter in the selection of conditioned responses. Different models posit the filter at different locations in the S-R stream, but most models suggest either a pre-encoding filter, in which much information is discarded at an early stage of processing, or a post-encoding filter, in which the information is stored but not subsequently expressed in behavior. A selective review of the literature on cue-competition effects reveals a plethora of phenomena that support a post-encoding, but not a pre-encoding filter in Pavlovian processes.     

What’s the matter with Huck Finn?

This paper explores some key commitments of the idea that it can be rational to do what you believe you ought not to do. I suggest that there is a prima facie tension between this idea and certain plausible coherence constraints on rational agency. I propose a way to resolve this tension. While akratic agents are always irrational, they are not always practically irrational, as many authors assume. Rather, “inverse” akratics like Huck Finn fail in a distinctively theoretical way. What explains why akratic agents are always either theoretically or practically irrational? I suggest that this is true because an agent’s total evidence determines both the beliefs and the intentions it is rational for her to have. Moreover, an agent’s evidence does so in a way such that it is never rational for the agent to at once believe that she ought to Φ and lack the intention to Φ.     

Where’s the difficulty in standardized reading tests: The passage or the question?

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the extent to which item and text characteristics predict item difficulty on the comprehension portion of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests for the 7th–9th and 10th–12th grade levels. Detailed item-based analyses were performed on 192 comprehension questions on the basis of the cognitive processing model framework proposed by Embretson and colleagues (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987). Item difficulty was analyzed in terms of various passage features (e.g., word frequency and number of propositions) and individual-question characteristics (e.g., abstractness and degree of inferential processing), using hierarchical linear modeling. The results indicated that the difficulty of the items in the test for the 7th–9th grade level is primarily influenced by text features—in particular, vocabulary difficulty—whereas the difficulty of the items in the test for the 10th–12th grade level is less systematically influenced by text features.     

What’s wrong with the evolutionary argument against naturalism?

Alvin Plantinga has argued that evolutionary naturalism (the idea that God does not tinker with evolution) undermines its own rationality. Natural selection is concerned with survival and reproduction, and false beliefs conjoined with complementary motivational drives could serve the same aims as true beliefs. Thus, argues Plantinga, if we believe we evolved naturally, we should not think our beliefs are, on average, likely to be true, including our beliefs in evolution and naturalism. I argue herein that our cognitive faculties are less reliable than we often take them to be, that it is theism which has difficulty explaining the nature of our cognition, that much of our knowledge is not passed through biological evolution but learned and transferred through culture, and that the unreliability of our cognition helps explain the usefulness of science.     

Where’s the cookie? The ability of monkeys to track object transpositions

Object permanence is the ability to represent mentally an object and follow its position even when it has disappeared from view. According to Piaget’s 6-stage scale of the sensorimotor period of development, it seems that object permanence appears in Stage 4 and fully develops in Stage 6. In this study, we investigated the ability of some species of monkeys (i.e. pig-tailed macaque, lion-tailed macaque, Celebes crested macaque, barbary macaque, De Brazza’s monkey, L’Hoest’s monkey, Allen’s swamp monkey, black crested mangabeys, collared mangabeys, Geoffroy’s spider monkey) to track the displacement of an object, which consisted of a reward hidden under one of two cups. Our findings showed that the examined subjects possess Stage 6 of object permanence. We then compared our results with data on apes and dogs participating in Rooijakkers et al. (Anim Cogn 12:789–796, 2009) experiment, where the same method was applied. The monkeys examined by us performed significantly better than the dogs but worse than the apes. In our experiment, the monkeys performed above chance level in all variants, but it should be noted that we observed significant differences in the number of correct choices according to the level of a variant’s complexity.     

N. A. Vasil’ev’s Logic and the Problem of Future Random Events

The solution of the problem of the future random events truth is considered in Vasil’ev’s logic. N. A. Vasil’ev graded the logic according to two levels—the level of facts, i.e. time fixed events, and the level of notions or rules, governing these facts. The mathematical construction previously suggested for imaginary Vasil’ev’s logic, extends to the early variant of his logic—a logic of notions. In the paper, we investigate the meaning of problematic and uncertain assertions introduced by Vasil’ev. As a result, we developed a model of Vasil’ev’s logic of facts that resolves also the truth problem of future random events. The imaginary logic has also been extended to the level of notions, and the law of the excluded eighth is gotten in it. The correspondence between Vasil’ev’s terms “some” and “all” and modern quantifiers is discussed.     

Where Have All the Tomboys Gone? Women’s Accounts of Gender in Adolescence

This study was designed to investigate accounts of tomboyism cessation and continuation in adolescence in the narratives of a small sample of adult, working and lower-middle class, New Jersey-area lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women who identified as childhood tomboys. Study participants discussed several reasons for ceasing and continuing tomboyism in adolescence, including maturation, heterosexual interests, parental and peer pressures, athletic participation, and sexual desires for girls or women. Several participants questioned the tomboy label by highlighting discrepancies between behavior and identification. Women’s relationships to the varied gendered meanings referenced in the “tomboy” label, the salience of women’s adult sexualities in their narratives of gender in adolescence, and the dangers for scholars of presuming conformity and heterosexuality are discussed.     

Prior’s defence of Hintikka’s theorem. A discussion of Prior’s ‘The logic of obligation and the obligations of the logician’

In his paper, The logic of obligation and the obligations of the logician, A.N. Prior considers Hintikka??s theorem, according to which a statement cannot be both impossible and permissible. This theorem has been seen as problematic for the very idea of a logic of obligation. However, Prior rejects the view that the logic of obligation cannot be formalised. He sees this resistance against such a view as an important part of what could be called the obligation of the logician. Prior argues that Hintikka??s theorem should not be seen as something paradoxical. On the contrary, it should be seen as a fully acceptable consequence of a basic and reasonable assumption in deontic logic, namely Hintikka??s rule.     

V.A. Smirnov’s Results in the Field of Modern Formal Logic

This paper is a survey of V.A. Smirnovs main results in modern logic.     

Psychotherapeutic practitioners’ views of the efficacy of mindfulness for the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder: A qualitative key informant analysis

Objectives: A substantial proportion of individuals affected by obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are not experiencing adequate therapeutic outcomes from current standard psychotherapeutic treatments. Mindfulness has had a positive therapeutic impact on many symptoms associated with OCD. This study investigated the views of experienced psychotherapeutic practitioners concerning the potential efficacy of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention for individuals with OCD.

Method: Six psychotherapeutic professionals experienced in using mindfulness with individuals affected by OCD were interviewed. Data were subjected to thematic analysis.

Results: Participants reported that engaging in mindfulness enabled people with OCD to experience an altered relationship with their symptoms and self. This new attitude, in conjunction with cognitive behavioural therapy, was perceived as helping individuals manage their OCD in an effective and healthy way. However, participants were unsure whether an exclusively mindfulness-based treatment would be effective.

Conclusion: This study indicates the potential for mindfulness practice to constitute a valuable therapeutic resource in helping people manage their OCD experience. Implications for future research and practice are considered.     

Who is the Hero in the Life of the Traumatized Patient? Reflections on Bodansky’s Work with Mrs. E

The vexed question of how to explain analytic success with traumatized patients like Bodansky’s Mrs. E is considered from a perspective on psychoanalytic history and the specific theory-buttressed assumptions and practices of earlier generations of analysts that led them to conclude that traumatized patients couldn’t be helped via psychoanalytic work. I then consider Mrs. E’s life with an organizing question, Who is its hero?, applying perspectives from Charles Dickens and from Fraiberg and colleagues’ work, and use these perspectives to question the theory-based assumption that Mrs. E must have somewhere had a good object experience to have a life. These perspectives allow contemplation of a saving forceful agency at Mrs. E’s core (perhaps one experienced by her as “animal”) that seems essential to understanding her successes in living. The success of her treatment in assisting her with building a life suggests that her analyst’s helping her with mirroring and, even more important, with mentalizing, contribute importantly to her life improvement. Some potential limitations of his approach to her are also implied in his account; in particular, his limited work with her intimate desires and feelings, both libidinal and aggressive.     

‘Making Room for the Other(s)’: A consideration of psychodynamic counselling with women with Asperger’s Syndrome

This paper explores psychodynamic therapy with young women with Aspergers Syndrome through the use of a composite case study. It seeks to make sense of a female patient’s obsession with a figure from celebrity culture – ‘Tom’ from ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. The potential use of ‘Tom’ by the patient as an idealised object, an autistic object, a transitional object and a transformative object is considered. Drawing on Rosenfeld’s concept of pathological narcissism and Meltzer’s concept of ‘aesthetic reciprocity’, the paper seeks to make sense of both the defences that the patient utilises and the impact of the deficits she has experienced. Attention is given to the development of the therapy through the use of play and work in the transference. Gradually, the patient becomes more able to tolerate separateness and in doing so becomes more connected to her own internal world and the feelings of others. In so doing, she becomes more aware of her actual social marginalisation and gains a greater sense of awareness of her diagnosis.     

The notion of professional identity among practitioners working with asylum seekers. A discursive analysis of practitioners’ experience of clinical supervision and working context in work with asylum seekers

The present study analyses interviews that were conducted with eight professionals who have provided therapeutic work to asylum seekers. It explores practitioners’ perspective on the impact of clinical supervision on their work as well as the impact of their working organisational context on the way they experience their professional identity. The findings of the study suggest that the experience of working with this population produces a notion of professional identity that offers a more politicised engagement with clinical work. This politicised notion of professional identity is reflected in the practitioners’ perspective on the use of clinical supervision as well as in the manner in which they position themselves within their organisational context.     

What’s Wrong with the Online Echo Chamber: A Motivated Reasoning Account

In this ‘age of information’, some worry that we get our news from online ‘echo chambers’, news feeds on our social media accounts that contain information from like-minded sources. Filtering our information in this way seems prima facie problematic from an epistemic perspective. I vindicate this intuition by offering an explanation of what is wrong with online echo chambers that appeals to a particular kind of motivated reasoning, or bias due to one’s interests. This sort of bias affects, not which evidence one is exposed to, but how one makes use of the evidence that one has, on the basis of one’s interests. I argue that consulting an online echo chamber often facilitates and amplifies this bias. I then draw some general conclusions about the potential downside of having ready access to so much information.     

Husserl’s Conception of Physical Theories and Physical Geometry in the Time of the Prolegomena: A Comparison with Duhem’s and Poincaré’s Views

This paper discusses Husserl’s views on physical theories in the first volume of his Logical Investigations, and compares them with those of his contemporaries Pierre Duhem and Henri Poincaré. Poincaré’s views serve as a bridge to a discussion of Husserl’s almost unknown views on physical geometry from about 1890 on, which in comparison even with Poincaré’s—not to say Frege’s—or almost any other philosopher of his time, represented a rupture with the philosophical tradition and were much more in tune with the physical geometry underlying the Einstein-Hilbert general theory of relativity developed more than two decades later.