Slow Philosophy

Metaphilosophy is typically concerned with such questions as the goals of philosophy, the relations between philosophy and the arts and sciences, the methods of argumentation and tools of analysis employed by philosophers, major trends and schools of thought, the prospects for progress and future directions. But one topic that has been consistently overlooked in these discussions is that of the temporality, or pace and tempo, of philosophy. Initially this may seem a relatively insignificant topic and therefore one that has been justifiably passed over. The tempo of philosophy, however, relates in quite direct ways to the nature of philosophical practice and how this has been shaped by wider social currents and changes – matters that are of crucial concern to metaphilosophy. Most of us, for example, are keenly aware that modern life is fast and frenzied, and its busy‐ness appears only to be accelerating. How has this impacted upon the ways in which philosophy is understood and produced? Does the fast pace of contemporary life compel us to reevaluate not only our ways of living but also our ways of thinking as philosophers? In response to such questions, I propose that philosophy is in urgent need of slowing down, and to this end I develop what might be called a ‘Slow Philosophy’.     

Slow potential topography

Several studies analyzing slow and long-lasting changes in scalp-recorded brain potentials have recently been published (e.g., Vitouch, Bauer, Gittler, M. Leodolter, & U. Leodolter, 1997). Such long-lasting changes turned out to be applicable as a fairly direct measure of cortical activity. Combined with multichannel recording, slow potential recording can serve as a data source for a noninvasive functional topography in cognitive psychophysiology. This paper describes methodological aspects crucial for true DC recording. Special properties of this brain activity signal will be addressed in the light of its complex origin. Since DC-EEG topography appears to be very promising for future research, specific aspects of multichannel DC-EEG handling, data processing, imaging, and analysis are specifically discussed. Finally, the advantages that cognitive psychophysiology may gain from DC-EEG topography are addressed.     

The Slow Creation of Humanity

The concept of “humanity”—the belief that “all humanity is one undivided and indivisible family”—has been created slowly in human consciousness since the fifteenth century. Humanity has found increasing expression in international law through the ending of slavery, the creation of “crimes against humanity,” and the advancement of human rights. This slow creation of humanity is described by reviewing the vital contributions of Bartolomé de Las Casas, Granville Sharp, Edmund Dene Morel, H. G. Wells, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Still, the creation of humanity is incomplete. The author's research on “identification with all humanity” is summarized. Finally, speculation is offered on the social and psychological foundations of identification with all humanity, on factors that undermine it, and on how it might be enlarged.     

Slow Versus Fast Growing

We survey a selection of results about majorization hierarchies. The main focus is on classical and recent results about the comparison between the slow and fast growing hierarchies.     

Off to a Slow Start: Four Profiles of Slow Readers in Second Grade

Assessments of oral reading rate in words correct per minute (WCPM) have proliferated in elementary classrooms. This study explores the similarities and differences among students at the end of second grade who demonstrate low WCPM. Using latent profile analysis, readers with low WCPM compared to peers were identified (n?=?2,191) from a state-wide assessment database and grouped into four statistically significant profiles based on their reading accuracy, rate, prosody, and comprehension scores. Students in Profile 1 demonstrated relatively high skills across the board, compared to the other “slow readers”; students in Profile 2 demonstrated high accuracy paired with low rate; students in Profile 3 demonstrated low accuracy paired with comparatively high rate; and students in Profile 4 demonstrated low scores across the board. The students who struggled with accuracy (Profiles 3 and 4) also demonstrated more difficulty with comprehension, word recognition, and spelling. The students who struggled most with rate (Profiles 2 and 4) demonstrated more difficulty with prosody. Profile membership predicted students’ scores on a state standardized test of reading one year later, at the end of third grade. These findings suggest that low WCPM can indicate a range of underlying skill difficulties, which may require differentiated support and instruction to support long-term reading proficiency.     

欧洲人不爱上教堂了

[美国《华盛顿邮报》5月6日文章]题:空荡荡的欧洲教堂(作者T·R·里德) 900多年来,欧洲各地的朝圣者成群结队地来到坎特伯雷这个古老的城镇,来瞻仰这里雄伟的大教堂。在乔叟所著的第一部用英文出版的伟大著作中就描述了这种情形。 但在今天,那些朝圣者的热情大大削弱了。上周日的晨祷中,坎特伯雷大教堂雄伟的穹顶下,总共只有     

Slow cortical and heart rate correlates of discrimination performance

Slow EEG potentials (F_z, C_z, P_z) and heart rate were recorded during the foreperiod of a reaction task, which involved different levels of discrimination difficulty. A simple reaction task was compared with a selective reaction task where either an easy or a difficult discrimination was required. In general, the terminal amplitude of the CNV was not affected by task difficulty. However, a prolonged negative wave was found when the difficulty of the task was not known to the subject in advance but was indicated by S₁. Moreover, the heart-rate deceleration around S₂ was more pronounced the more difficult the discrimination required at S₂.     

Slow wave sleep and recollection in recognition memory

Recognition memory performance reflects two distinct memory processes: a conscious process of recollection, which allows remembering specific details of a previous event, and familiarity, which emerges in the absence of any conscious information about the context in which the event occurred. Slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep are differentially involved in the consolidation of different types of memory. The study assessed the effects of SWS and REM sleep on recollection, by means of the "remember"/"know" paradigm. Subjects studied three blocks of 12 words before a 3-h retention interval filled with SWS, REM sleep or wakefulness, placed between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Afterwards, recognition and recollection were tested. Recollection was higher after a retention interval rich in SWS than after a retention interval rich in REM sleep or filled with wakefulness. The results suggest that SWS facilitates the process of recollection in recognition memory.     

Slow brain potentials in the CNV-paradigm

Slow brain potentials were recorded during the foreperiod of a reaction time task, and the effects of instructions governing the trade-off between speed and accuracy were investigated. One brain potential, a slow negative shift preceding S₂, was largely attenuated under accuracy instructions. It is suggested that this shift is dependent on a motor response and that its amplitude reflects the level of motor preparation. Two other brain potentials, a slow positive and a slow negative wave, seem to depend on the psychological properties of S₁. Enhanced amplitudes were found, when S₁ provides information, besides its warning function.     

Slow and fast chess performance across three expert levels

ObjectivesSlow and fast thinking are crucial for human decision making in several domains of human activity including sports. These cognitive processes are remarkable in the intellectually demanding sport of chess. Slow and fast thinking underlie chess performance. However, the relative influence of each process has elicited controversial findings. Moreover, individual differences in chess skill are likely to moderate the integration of both processes.DesignThe simultaneous change over six time points in slow and fast chess performance was analyzed with a cross-domain latent curve model (LCM).MethodArchival data from an extensive group of chess players (n = 32,173) were included in these analyses at untitled, intermediate, and advanced levels of expertise. Intercept and slope latent factors of growth were specified and correlated for both processes.ResultsThere were remarkable differences in the change in slow and fast performance regarding the three expert levels, and in the concurrent interrelationship of both processes. The interdependence between both processes was more robust for the advanced than for the untitled and intermediate players.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that a better integration of slow and fast performance is produced at higher levels of expertise.     

The Epistemological Bases of the Slow Switching Argument

One of the main arguments intended to show that content externalism undermines the privileged access thesis is the ‘slow switching argument’, originally proposed by Boghossian (1989). In this argument, it is supposed that a subject is unknowingly switched back and forth between Earth and Twin Earth: then it is claimed that, given externalism, when the subject is on Earth thinking that water is wet, he cannot know the content of his thought a priori, for he cannot, by mere reflection, rule out the relevant alternative hypothesis that he is on Twin Earth thinking that twater is wet. One of the controversies surrounding this argument stems from the fact that it is not clear which epistemological principle underlies it. Here, I examine two suggestions made in the literature as to what that underlying principle might be. I argue that neither of these suggested principles is plausible, and thus that the slow switching argument never gets off the ground.     

Slow potentials in a melody recognition task

In a previous study, slow negative shifts were found in the EEG of subjects listening to well-known melodies. The two experiments reported here were designed to investigate the variables to which these slow potentials are related. In the first experiment, two opposite hypotheses were tested: The slow shifts might express subjects' acquaintance with the melodies or, on the contrary, the effort invested to identify them. To this end, some of the melodies were presented in the rhythms of other melodies to make recognition more difficult. Further, melodies rated as very well-known and as very unknown were analysed separately. However, the slow shifts were not affected by these experimental variations. Therefore in the second experiment, on the one hand the purely physical parameters intensity and duration were varied, but this variation had no impact on the slow shifts either. On the other hand, recognition was made more difficult by monotonously repeating the pitch of the 4th tone for the rest of some melodies. The slow negative shifts were enhanced with these monotonous melodies. This enhancement supports the "effort" hypothesis. Accordingly, the ofter shifts obtained in both experiments might likewise reflect effort. But since the task was not demanding, it is suggested that these constant shifts reflect the effort invested for coping with the entire underarousing situation rather than with the task. Frequently, slow eye movements occurred in the same time range as the slow potentials, resulting in EOG potentials spreading to the EEG recording sites. Yet results did not change substantially when the EEG recordings were corrected for the influence of EOG potentials.     

Brain Slow Potentials and Postural Sway Behavior During Sharpshooting Performance

In the present study, the relation of preparatory brain slow potentials (SPs) to postural body sway during sharpshooting performance was examined. SPs from frontal, left-central, and right-central areas were recorded from 6 elite and 6 non-elite sharpshooters during a realistic simulated shooting task. A force platform technique was used in the recording of postural sway. The results showed that body sway, as indexed by sway amplitude and mean velocity, was associated with the concomitant SP changes. That relationship was dependent on the shooter's expertise level, however. The main finding among the elite shooters was that the reduced amplitude of body sway coincided with reduced frontal positivity, whereas in the non-elite shooters, the amplitude of sway and the mean sway velocity in the anteroposterior direction were typically accompanied by the lateralization of central negativity. Those findings offer some new insights for evaluating the functional significance of preparatory brain SPs associated with psychomotor processing in sharpshooting. The results from the present study also have implications for the understanding of the postural strategies employed by shooters of different expertise levels.     

缓慢的力量——Ilizarov技术在中国微言

1950年前苏联骨科医师Ilizarov发现了牵张成骨技术,应用模仿自然的缓慢牵伸力能治愈复杂创伤骨折、骨与软组织的缺损、感染和肢体的严重畸形.这种治疗模式既不同于传统骨科手术技术,也不同于现代的创伤骨科的骨折内固定接骨(AO)技术或截骨矫形技术,这些技术的特征之一就是迅速进行骨的固定和矫正畸形.以每天1mm为特征的Ilizarov技术,不仅解决了缺损和畸形中的骨的问题,而且解决了包括血管、神经、肌肉和皮肤在内的其他软组织的生长问题,对骨科一些创伤和畸形的效果无以伦比.由于诸多原因,在我国的传播不够广泛,还需要各方努力,来一起推动该技术的发展和应用.     

Slow magic: psychoanalysis and "the disenchantment of the world"

Freud's work can be situated in terms of the debate between Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment thought. The attempts of both sides to claim Freud for their position have merit, but they miss the crucial point: namely, that the tension between its Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment tendencies is what gives Freud's thinking much of its vitality and depth. The task that faces the interpreter is therefore to elucidate that tension and assess the alignment of forces between the two strands in his thought. An examination of the concept of magic in Freud's theory provides an opportunity to pursue this interpretive task. Although the Enlightenment position he often seems to embrace advocates the complete elimination of magic, many "magical" elements remain in his theory and clinical practice. Nor should this situation be deplored, for the ambition to completely exorcise "enchantment" from human experience is one of the misguided excesses of the Enlightenment. The question of an appropriate fate for magic in psychoanalysis is discussed in relation to the vicissitudes of the transference. Finally, the science versus hermenueutics debate is examined in the light of these considerations in an attempt to specify the unique nature of the psychoanalytic experience.