One REBTers Model for Business Consulting

Organizational consulting offers opportunities to diversify one’s practice and increase one’s income, all the while reducing the frustrations associated with working with insurance and managed care companies. This paper describes one REBT therapist’s conception of the “personality” of any organization, a list of potential services to offer businesses, and a few practical suggestions to successfully transfer from the clinical office into the organizational world.     

In Defense of Imperative Inference

“Surrender; therefore, surrender or fight” is apparently an argument corresponding to an inference from an imperative to an imperative. Several philosophers, however (Williams 1963; Wedeking 1970; Harrison 1991; Hansen 2008), have denied that imperative inferences exist, arguing that (1) no such inferences occur in everyday life, (2) imperatives cannot be premises or conclusions of inferences because it makes no sense to say, for example, “since surrender” or “it follows that surrender or fight”, and (3) distinct imperatives have conflicting permissive presuppositions (“surrender or fight” permits you to fight without surrendering, but “surrender” does not), so issuing distinct imperatives amounts to changing one’s mind and thus cannot be construed as making an inference. In response I argue inter alia that, on a reasonable understanding of ‘inference’, some everyday-life inferences do have imperatives as premises and conclusions, and that issuing imperatives with conflicting permissive presuppositions does not amount to changing one’s mind.     

First-Personal Authority and the Normativity of Rationality

In “Vindicating the Normativity of Rationality,” Nicholas Southwood proposes that rational requirements are best understood as demands of one’s “first-personal standpoint.” Southwood argues that this view can “explain the normativity or reason-giving force” of rationality by showing that they “are the kinds of thing that are, by their very nature, normative.” We argue that the proposal fails on three counts: First, we explain why demands of one’s first-personal standpoint cannot be both reason-giving and resemble requirements of rationality. Second, the proposal runs headlong into the now familiar “bootstrapping” objection that helped illuminate the need to vindicate the normativity of rationality in the first place. Lastly, even if Southwood is right—the demands of rationality just are the demands or our first-personal standpoints—the explanation as to why our standpoints generate reasons will entail that we sometimes have no reason at all to be rational.     

"浩然之气"的创生性与先天性——从冯友兰先生《孟子浩然之气章解》谈起

Feng Youlan emphasizes the concept of “creativity” in his article “Explanation of Mencius’ Chapter on Strong, Moving Vital Force”, in particular highlighting the problem whether the “strong, moving vital force” is “innate” or “acquired”. Cheng Hao and Zhu Xi believed the “strong, moving vital force” was endowed by Heaven, so was therefore innate; “nourishment” cleared fog and allowed one to “recover one’s original nature”. Mencius’ theory on “the good of human nature” is illustrated in the concept of integrated “original endowment”. So Cheng Hao and Zhu Xi’s theory of “recovering the original nature” proposed that the “strong, moving vital force” was innate, which is in complete agreement with Mencius and of which there is ample evidence in Mencius. However, “nature” is “created by the accumulation of righteousness”. Namely, it is the completion and presentation of the process of creation and transformation of human beings. Only when we consider both Cheng Hao and Zhu Xi’s theory and Feng Youlan’s theory can we fully understand Mencius’ theory of “the nourishment of the strong, moving vital force”, which is of great theoretical and academic value in accurately understanding Mencius and the Confucian theory of mind-nature. Translated by Lei Yongqiang from Shehui kexue zhanxian 社会科学战线 (Social Science Front), 2007, (5):12–16     

“Measuring up to Measure” Dysmorphophobia as a Language Game

We look into the transformation of meanings in psychotherapy and suggest a clinical application for Wittgenstein’s intuitions concerning the role of linguistic practices in generating significance. In post-modern theory, therapy does not necessarily change reality as much as it does our way of experiencing it by intervening in the linguistic-representational rules responsible for constructing the text which expresses the problem. Since “states of mind assume the truths and forms of the language devices that we use to represent them” (Foucault, 1963, p. 57), therapy may be intended as a narrative path toward a new naming of one’s reified experiences. The clinical problem we consider here, the pervasive feeling of inadequacy due to one’s excessive height (dysmorphophobia), is an excellent example of “language game” by which a “perspicuous representation” (the “therapy” proposed by Wittgenstein in the 1953) may bring out alternatives to linguistically-built “traps”, putting the blocked semiotic mechanism back into motion.     

Trees and Us: Poetic Metaphors and Pastoral Images

This article elaborates on my earlier contention that poetry and pastoral care have a great deal in common (Capps, The Poet’s Gift, 1993) by focusing on Joyce Kilmer’s well-known poem “Trees.” I use this poem to support the metaphorical association of trees and human beings and to advocate for the pastoral image of the upholder. A brief sketch of Kilmer’s life is presented, and parodies of the poem are used to address the question whether pens are mightier than swords (a question that Kilmer’s own life as a poet and soldier also evokes). The article concludes with Denise Levertov’s poem “From Below” which, together with Kilmer’s “Trees,” illumines the image of the pastor as ordained to be the upholder of the community and of the individuals who comprise it.     

Mencius?? aesthetics and its position

Mencius’ aesthetics unfolded around the ideal personality in his mind. Such an ideal personality belonged to a great man who was sublime, practical and honorable, and it was presented as the beauty of magnificence or the beauty of masculinity. Mencius put forward many propositions such as “the completed goodness that is brightly displayed is called greatness,” nourishing “one’s grand qi 气 (the great morale personality),” “only after a man is a sage can he completely suits himself to his own form,” “the saints only apprehended before me that of which my mind approves along with other men,” being “conscious of sincerity on self-examination,” and flowing “abroad, above and beneath, like that of Heaven and Earth,” all of which described an ideal personality through the course of its formation and its psychological experience. As a prominent school before the Qin dynasty, Mencius’ aesthetics greatly developed the Confucian teaching of “internal sage.” It shared many similarities with Zhuangzi’s thought and was also an aesthetic mode opposed to the latter. Both kinds of aesthetics were prominent: Mencius’ teaching was like imposingly towering and muscularly overflowing majestic mountains; Zhuangzi’s thought was like gracefully flowing water with an air of femininity. In real life though, Mencius’ teaching has greater practical significance in addressing the unbearable lightness of being, a disease of modernity.     

Original mind and cosmic consciousness in the co-creative process

This article will investigate the issue of accessing benxin 本心 (original mind), subsequent operation from Self and, in that process, union with the “greater universe” or benti 本体 (original substance)—a state expressed in the West as “cosmic consciousness.” It is proposed that this allows one to participate as a partner in the creative process of one’s own life and the surrounding world. The equally important question of how to gain contact with original mind will also be addressed, as well as the consequences of doing so with regard to the human condition. The concept of original thought is introduced, being important here as it is held to be that thought which is generated in the pure condition of original mind, devoid of influence from finite physical existence.     

Disputes over Philosophical Views in the First Half of the Twentieth Century and Development of Contemporary Chinese Philosophy

To explore the development of contemporary Chinese philosophy, fundamentally, is to explore the development of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. The disputes over philosophical views in Chinese academic circles during the first half of the twentieth century have been focused on understanding Marxist philosophy from such aspects as “what kind of philosophy Chinese society needs,” “the relation of philosophy to science,” and “philosophy as an idea to reflect on one’s life.” These explorations have provided us a significant ideological insight into the development of Marxist philosophy and contemporary Chinese philosophy; that is, in contemporary China, Marxist philosophy, as a doctrine of the liberation and all-round development of human beings, exists not only as a kind of “doctrine” or “academy” but also as a kind of widely accepted “xueyuan (academic cultivations)” among people. Translated by Zhao Zhiyi from Jourmal of Jilin University (Social Sciences), 2005:1     

Relevant distractors do not cause negative priming

Highly relevant stimuli (such as one’s own name) can capture attention in situations in which one can only partially attend to the environment (e.g., the classic “cocktail party” phenomenon, introduced by Moray, 1959). The present study extends previous findings on selection tasks demonstrating these intrusions of relevant stimuli. Not only can highly relevant stimuli be detected more easily, but attempts to deliberately ignore them will also be hampered, so subsequent reactions to such stimuli will not be slowed. In the experiment, participants (N = 32) ignored the first names of other participants without problems, and they showed slowed reactions to such names that they had ignored shortly before (negative priming task). In contrast, no slowing was observed for participants’ own names when those names had just previously been used as distractors.     

The body in action

This article is about how to describe an agent’s awareness of her bodily movements when she is aware of executing an action for a reason. Against current orthodoxy, I want to defend the claim that the agent’s experience of moving has an epistemic place in the agent’s awareness of her own intentional action. In “The problem,” I describe why this should be thought to be problematic. In “Motives for denying epistemic role,” I state some of the main motives for denying that bodily awareness has any epistemic role to play in the content of the agent’s awareness of her own action. In “Kinaesthetic awareness and control,” I sketch how I think the experience of moving and the bodily sense of agency or control are best described. On this background, I move on to present, in “Arguments for epistemic role,” three arguments in favour of the claim that normally the experience of moving is epistemically important to one’s awareness of acting intentionally. In the final “Concluding remarks,” I round off by raising some of the worries that motivated the denial of my claim in the first place.

Why be my colleague’s keeper? Moral justifications for peer review

Justifying ethical practices is no easy task. This paper considers moral justifications for peer review so as to persuade even the sceptical individualist. Two avenues provide a foundation for that justification: self-interest (the right behaviour is that which maximally serves one’s own interests) and social contract theory (the right behaviour is that which best meets obligations set in binding social contracts). A wider notion of “interest” permits the self-interest approach to justify not only submitting one’s own work to peer review but also removing oneself momentarily from the production of primary knowledge to serve as a rigorous, independent, and honest referee. The contract approach offers a non-selfish alternative and relies on four types of binding social contracts: those implicit in accepting funds, those implicit in asserted professional status, those to contribute what is of most value to society, and those to defend the ideals of the Academy. Efforts to restore respect for rigorous, independent, honest peer review should begin in earnest.     

What Makes People Happy? Some Evidence from Northern Ireland

Using data on over 3000 individuals in Northern Ireland, this paper conducts an econometric investigation into what makes people happy. It draws a distinction between “objective” (income, marital status) and “subjective” (satisfaction with one’s standard of living (SoL); money worries; experience of poverty) factors determining happiness. In so doing, it takes a broader view of “economic status” than one defined solely by income: occupational class, mortgage status, financial worries, rural/urban residence, poverty experience, and, of course, income coalesce to form this, more complex, concept of economic status. Juxtaposed against this, is the concept of “context-free” and “context-specific” well-being. A particular example of the latter is the degree of satisfaction with one’s SoL and an important point of focus of the paper is the relationship between SoL satisfaction and happiness. A complementary point of focus is an analysis of the determinants of context-free and context-specific well-being. The paper also examines the effects of non-economic factors on happiness in particular on specific aspects of the ill-health of respondents and upon the quality of the areas in which they live. Having analysed these effects, it places a money value on each of the diversity of effects that act upon a person’s level of happiness.The analysis in this paper is based on the Poverty and Social Exclusion in Northern Ireland (PSENI) Project’s data and I am grateful to the Project leaders – Paddy Hillyard, Eithne McLaughlin and Mike Tomlinson – for permission to use these data. Thanks are due to Andrew Oswald, to one of the Editors of JOHS, and to two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Needless to say, the usual disclaimer applies.     

Ambivalence and Male Religious Experience: An Autobiographical Study

I argue that what are typically identified as “calls from God” to an office of sacred power are filled with various degrees and types of ambivalence. This ambivalence becomes manifest (or not) to the person experiencing a call at various points in their lifespan and it exists for a number of reasons. I seek to unveil the psychodynamics responsible for these feelings of ambivalence. I argue that the awareness of feelings of ambivalence can be correlated with the degree of one’s happiness—specifically in one’s sexual and mental health; this point is marshaled throughout the essay by autobiographical examples of men who experienced some type of divine calling. In addition to psychoanalytic resources, I apply postmodern autobiographical criticism to this autobiographical study; my autobiographical notes are written in italics.     

A new discourse on Xunzi��s philosophy of language

Xunzi’s philosophy of language was mainly unfolded through the “discrimination of ming 名 (names) and shi 实 (realities)” and the “discrimination of yan 言 (words) and yi 意 (meanings).” Particularly, the “discrimination of names and realities” was centered on the propositions that “realities are realized when their names are heard” and that “names are given to point up realities,” including the view on the essence of language such as “names expect to indicate realities” and “conventions established by usage,” the view of development of language such as “coming form the former usage and being newly established,” and the view of functions of language such as “discriminating superiority and inferiority and differentiating identities and differences”; while the “discrimination of words and meanings” mainly contained two aspects: One was that words could completely represent meanings while it could not do so on the other hand, and the other was that the Dao should be grasped through “an unoccupied, concentrated and quiet mind.” Xunzi’s philosophy of language stressed both language’s value attribute and its cognitive attribute, and it is the greatest achievement of pre-Qin dynasty’s philosophy of language.     

Pastoral Care for Shame-Based Perfectionism

While perfectionism has been associated with guilt dynamics, the form of perfectionism that is most frequently discussed by psychologists is connected to self-condemnation for perceived failures to reach the high standard set for personal achievement. There is therefore a strong link between perfectionism and inferiority shame. Psychotherapists have given quite a bit of attention to shame-based perfectionism; it has been largely neglected by pastoral psychologists. Three approaches to the pastoral care of shame-based perfectionism are developed. The first approach is based in cognitive therapy. It is argued that perfectionism is grounded in a faulty core belief about the self—namely, “I am what I achieve.” The second method makes use of strategies developed by John Bradshaw for accepting and affirming all one’s sub-selves. Bradshaw’s approach is critiqued, however, for the way in which shame-based and guilt-based perfectionism are confused. The third method is a modification and adaptation of Heinz Kohut’s strategy of “mirroring” (empathy, admiration, and approval) that he developed for use in work with clients with narcissistic personality disorder.     

A developed nature: a phenomenological account of the experience of home

Though “dwelling” is more commonly associated with Heidegger’s philosophy than with that of Merleau-Ponty, “being-at-home” is in fact integral to Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. I consider the notion of home as it relates to Merleau-Ponty’s more familiar notions of the “lived body” and the “level,” and, in particular, I consider how the unique intertwining of activity and passivity that characterizes our being-at-home is essential to our nature as free beings. I argue that while being-at-home is essentially an experience of passivity—i.e., one that rests in the background of our experience and provides a support and structure for our life that goes largely unnoticed and that is significantly beyond our “conscious” control—being-at-home is also a way of being to which we attain. This analysis of home reveals important psychological insights into the nature of our freedom as well as into the nature of the development of our adult ways of coping and behaving.     

孝意识的时间分析

The reason for the emergence of consciousness of filial piety is that parental care could activate reciprocal filial piety. Parental care and filial piety are two supplementary phenomena caused by the same time consciousness. Phenomenology neglects consciousness of filial piety because it lacks the thinking that sees the fundamental “meaning of time” in the intersection of “past” and “future”. The consciousness of filial piety can only be really constituted by a human being’s personal experience. “Frustrations in personal life” and “breeding of children for oneself” are two occasions for an adult to fight against the separating effect of individualized consciousness and regain awareness of filial piety. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Beijing Daxue Xuebao 北京大学学报 (Journal of Peking University), 2006, (1): 14–24