Fusions and Ordinary Physical Objects

In “Tropes and Ordinary Physical Objects”, Kris McDaniel argues that ordinary physical objects are fusions of monadic and polyadic tropes. McDaniel calls his view “TOPO”—for “Theory of Ordinary Physical Objects”. He argues that we should accept TOPO because of the philosophical work that it allows us to do. Among other things, TOPO is supposed to allow endurantists to reply to Mark Heller’s argument for perdurantism. But, we argue in this paper, TOPO does not help endurantists do that; indeed, we argue that anyone who accepts TOPO should reject endurantism.     

Tropes and Ordinary Physical Objects

I argue that a solution to puzzles concerning the relationship ofobjects and their properties – a version of the `bundle' theory ofparticulars according to which ordinary objects are mereologicalfusions of monadic and relational tropes – is also a solution topuzzles of material constitution involving the allegedco-location of material objects. Additionally, two argumentsthat have played a prominent role in shaping the current debate,Mark Heller's argument for Four Dimensionalism and Peter vanInwagen's argument against Mereological Universalism, are shownto be unsound given this version of the bundle theory.     

Employee Reactions to the Physical Work Environment: The Role of Childhood Residential Attributes1

This study examines the possibility that 2 employee background attributes, childhood residential density and childhood community type, moderate relations between characteristics of the physical work environment and employee responses. Administrative employees (N= 75) from 25 offices of a university participated in the research. Results demonstrate that employees from high-density childhood residences and urban communities exhibited more positive responses as adults (i. e., higher performance and lower crowding) to high-contact work environments (i. e., those characterized by few enclosures, high spatial density, and close interpersonal distance) than employees from other combinations of childhood residential density and community type. Results also suggest that the contributions of residential density and community type were somewhat accounted for by individual differences in social avoidance tendencies and noise sensitivities.     

In Pursuit of the Perfect Appearance: Discrepancies Among Self-Ideal Percepts of Multiple Physical Attributes 1

Testing self-discrepancy theories of body image, this investigation examined self-perceived and idealized physical attributes among 66 men and 69 women, who were white, heterosexual college students. Physical attributes included body size, weight, height, muscularity, hair color and length, eye color, and female breast size. Physical ideals included personal ideals, assumptions about the other sex's ideals for one's own sex, and actual other-sex ideals. Both sexes expressed significant self-ideal discrepancies on most attributes, whether ideals were assessed from personal or perceived other-sex standpoints. The sexes' discrepancies were often comparable in magnitude if the direction of discrepancy was ignored. Both sexes frequently exaggerated their assumptions of what the other sex idealized in the subjects' own sex. Particular self-ideal discrepancies predicted subjects' global body image. The applied and empirical implications of these findings were considered for both social and clinical contexts.     

Objects and attitudes

The concept of an attitudinal object has long been present in psychoanalysis but almost entirely neglected. This omission is integral in the confusion and controversy about the object concept in general. It has left a theoretical gap which the so-called object relations theories have attempted to fill. This paper offers some preliminary suggestions for a psychoanalytic understanding of attitudes as a first level of inference in the study of relationships and their psychological basis.     

Menstrual Distress and Sex-Role Attributes

The relationship between severity of menstrual distress, measured by the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, and sex-role attributes, measured by the Bern Sex-Role Inventory, was examined for a group of 103 undergraduate women. Data were compared for women using and not using oral contraceptives and for women from different religious groups. Because trait anxiety, as measured by a 28-item short form adapted from the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, was significantly correlated with menstrual distress, first-order correlations between distress and sex-role attributes partialled out anxiety scores. Although none of the sex-role attributes was significantly related to distress for the entire group or for the group of women using the pill, a significant positive relationship between masculinity and menstrual distress was noted for the group of women not using the pill. The pattern of results suggested that although sex role attributes and anxiety are related to reports of menstrual distress for Catholic women, only anxiety is associated with distress for Jewish women, and neither sex-role attributes nor anxiety is correlated with distress for Protestant women.     

Consciousness and its Objects

Books reviewed:
Colin McGinn, Consciousness and its Objects , Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2004, 256 pp. Reviewed by D. W. Hamlyn, Birkbeck College, University of London 38 Smithy Knoll Road Calver Hope Valley Derbyshire S32 3XW     

Objects of Interpretation

The paper examines the relation between interpretation and the objects of interpretation, principally, but not exclusively, in the realm of art. Several theses are defended: that interpretation cannot proceed without prior determination of the kind of thing being interpreted; that the mode of interpretation is determined by the nature of its object; that interpretation, of a meaning-determining rather than generic kind, focuses at the level of works , not descending to a bedrock of "mere objects"; that because works and their appropriate mode of interpretation are constituted by convention-bound practices, it follows that no clear line can be drawn between properties "in" a work and those "imputed to" it through interpretive procedures endorsed by the practice. The debate over constructivism or "imputationalism"– between Margolis and Krausz, on the one hand, and Stecker and Levinson, on the other – is engaged with an attempt to show a core of truth in each of the conflicting theories, once the right distinction between object, work, and interpretation is in place.     

安萨里论真主的本质和属性

真主的本质与属性问题是伊斯兰教义学当中的一个核心问题。安萨里在《信仰之中道》中对这一问题有详细阐述。他不仅论证了真主本质的存在及相关特性,说明了真主属性的共同特点,还指出了本质与属性关系上的相对二元化特征。其思想的独特之处在于,以理性的方式论证了真主对世界万物的直接创造和绝对支配。安萨里的很多重要思想如宇宙论、因果论、获得说、以及他同哲学家的一系列争论,都可以从这个角度得到更深入的理解。