On the relation between recent neurobiological data on perception (and action) and the Husserlian theory of constitution

The phenomenological theory of constitution promises a solution for the problem of consciousness insofar as it changes the traditional terms of this problem by systematically correlating subject and object in the unifying context of intentional acts. I argue that embodied constitution must depend upon the role of kinesthesia as a constitutive operator. In pursuing the path of intentionality in its descent from an idealistic level of pure constitution to this fully embodied kinesthetic constitution, we are able to gain access to different ontological regions such as physical thing, owned body and shared world. Neuroscience brings to light the somatological correlates of noemata. Bridging the gap between incarnation and naturalisation represents the best way of realizing the foundational program of transcendental phenomenology.     

Hemingway's Aging Heroes and the Concept of Phronesis

This article explores the concept of phronesis (practical wisdom) in four aging protagonists in Ernest Hemingway's works ranging from the short story A Clean Well-Lighted Place to the novella The Old Man and the Sea. Phronesis represents an understanding of the ways of the world, an acute sensitivity to a critical logic of human existence that can be attained only through extensive experience and suffering. The four aging protagonists are examples of Hemingway's definition of aging productively and profitably by purchasing an inner peace that consists of an intuitive system of continuous adjustment to the exigencies of daily living.     

Identity,Love, and the Imaginary Father

The father of personal prehistory serves as the earliest and most enduring representation of God. This sexually undifferentiated father is identified by Freud as both parents and the flow of feeling between them. Kristeva elaborates to say that the first father creates the foundation for the infant's sexual differentiation, that is, a primary narcissistic screen. When parental flow of feeling provides inadequate compensation for the loss of oneness with Mother, the infant intrapsychically constructs its own foundation, an Other that has both parents' ideal qualities, a God who is a psychologically necessary He. Consequently, females have different experiences than males as they form and relate to their self- and God-representations.     

Multidimensional Assessment of Chronic Low Back Pain: Predicting Treatment Outcomes

This study explored responses of chronic low back pain patients to treatment for different types of patients (dysfunctional, interpersonally distressed, and minimizer/adaptive coper), as classified using the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI). In addition, changes in MPI scores during treatment were examined separately for each patient type. Finally, this study explored the relationships between changes in MPI scores and physical improvement. Between-group differences in improvement were significant, with dysfunctional patients showing the most improvement on several scales. MPI scales that best predicted physical improvement differed according to patient type. Implications for treatment of low back pain patients are suggested, based upon differential reactions to treatment and different predictors of physical improvement for each patient group.     

Distinctions between subgroups of asthmatic children: Parental reactions to experimental separation

Parental reactions to experimental separation were analyzed for two groups of asthmatic children, those for whom behavioral factors were judged highly relevant to asthma and those for whom such factors appeared unimportant. The former group of 13 (predicted positives) had shown a highly significant improvement in asthma during separation from their families; the latter group of 12 (predicted negatives) had not. Coding of standardized interviews conducted around the time of separation disclosed that parents (mothers, especially) of predicted positives scored significantly higher than parents of predicted negatives on such scales as fussing over the child at the time of leave taking, missing child, experiencing pain and discomfort during the separation, being anxious over child's welfare, etc. Psychological test data did not discriminate between the parents' or childrens' groups as clearly as the more focused separation interviews but the test results were consistent with interview differences. The separation elicited very strong emotional reactions from several mothers.This study was supported by United States Public Health Service Grant No. HD01060 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kirk Brady, John Means, loan Muser, and Claire Purcell contributed to data collection and/or data analysis.     

Reasoning and logic

Gilbert Harman, in Logic and Reasoning (Synthese 60 (1984), 107–127) describes an unsuccessful attempt ... to develop a theory which would give logic a special role in reasoning. Here reasoning is psychological, a procedure for revising one's beliefs. In the present paper, I construe reasoning sociologically, as a process of linguistic interaction; and show how both reasoning in the psychologistic sense and logic are related to that process.     

Effects of sequential 1-minute time trials with and without inter-trial feedback and self-correction on general and special education students' fluency with math facts

We measured the effects of two procedures for implementing 1-min time trials on the rate and accuracy with which elementary students wrote answers to single-digit math facts in two concurrent experiments in a first grade classroom and a special education classroom. On-task behavior of three students in each class was also measured. Baseline was a 10-min work period in which students were told to answer as many problems as you can. The two time trial conditions, each of which was also conducted within a 10-min period, consisted of: (1) a series of seven 1-min time trials with a 20-s rest period following each timing; and (2) two 1-min timings, each followed by a teacher-directed feedback and self-correction activity. Students in both classrooms answered correctly more problems per minute during both time trial conditions than they did during the 10-min work period, with the highest levels of fluency occurring during the two time trials with self-correction. The emphasis on going fast did not impair students' accuracy of performance. In both classrooms the percentage of attempted problems answered correctly was high during the initial baseline and increased slightly over the course of the study. On-task behavior was higher during both time trial conditions than during the 10-min work period. When asked at the study's conclusion which of the three methods for practicing math facts (1) helped you learn the most and (2) would you like to do again, the majority of the students in both classrooms chose the time trials followed by feedback and self-correction.     

Variations in use of the term “or”

Two studies showed that adults' responses to questions involving the term or varied markedly depending upon the type of question presented. When presented with various objects (A's and B's) and asked to circle all things which are A or B subjects tended to circle A's as well as B's, whereas when asked to circle all the A's or B's subjects showed a relatively stronger tendency to circle one or the other. Moreover the nature of the sets of objects (As and Bs) influenced behavior as well. There was also evidence that the effects due to question wording or set type transferred.     

Review

Summary Whatever conception of moral philosophy one subscribes to, it is of interest from every standpoint to determine whether and to what extent even exclusively self-interested individuals are prepared to constrain themselves in a way which can be considered moral. Since self-interest is de facto a very strong motive in decisions and behavior, such analyses are significant in two respects. First, they can show how and within which bounds a moral disposition is justifiable even when lacking, e.g., benevolence, a special moral sense, a sense of (objective) value, or any disposition to construct a veil of ignorance, viz. in order to compute an average social utility. In this regard, a kind of minimal morality can be founded on just the assumption that individuals are strictly self-interested, as N. Hoerster (1983) has shown. Secondly such analyses can sharpen one's eyes for those situations in which moral obligations are possibly incurred (and which perhaps even rational egoists may desire), but which cannot really guide behavior in the face of strong self-interest. In this regard, insight into strategies for avoiding or ameliorating problematic situations may be won.     

Hick's interpretation of religious pluralism

Conclusion There is no question that Hick's theory rests upon multiple assumptions about a singular, transcendental grounding and the fundamental equality of the various religions that cannot be inductively verified beyond all doubt. That need not mean, however, that the attractiveness of his theory derives solely from the peculiar charm of supposing that the One and the Many are no more at odds in the realm of religion than anywhere else. For Hick's assumptions are not just an exercise in wishful thinking or wild speculation. They are based upon experience from within what he calls the benign circle of faith. Because the reality experienced is ambiguous, acceptance or rejection of his views will, of course, be a matter of choice. And, admittedly, this choice will be dictated not so much by a weighing of empirical evidence that might prove the various religions to be exactly as he sees them, as by a consideration of what we have been surveying in the preceding pages, namely, the import of seeing things as Hick does.

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Characteristics of Calls to Israeli Hotlines During the Gulf War

The current study presents results of a survey of 3,215 calls received at seven centers of telephone emergency services (TES) in Israel during the Gulf War, when citizens of Israel experienced severe stress resulting from SCUD missile attacks. Whereas former surveys have shown that characteristics of calls to TES in Israel are generally not affected by external stressogenic events, a remarkable change was recorded in both the quantity and quality of calls received in TES centers in Israel during the Gulf War. The relative frequencies of problem categories presented by callers during the Gulf War revealed a significant increase in environmental pressures, a category that reflected the stressful situation of the war, as opposed to intra- or interpersonal problems typical of peacetime calls. A comparison between this group of war calls and a control group of nonwar calls, revealed that the two groups represented populations of callers differing in sociodemographic characteristics, expectations, and benefits from the calls. Results are discussed in reference to the unique role of TES as a source of psychological first-aid in a community crisis situation.     

The elimination of de re formulas

It is shown that de re formulas are eliminable in the modal logic S5 extended with the axiom scheme x x.     

Simultaneous factor analysis of dichotomous variables in several groups

A new method is proposed for a simultaneous factor analysis of dichotomous responses from several groups of individuals. The method makes it possible to compare factor loading pattern, factor variances and covariances, and factor means over groups. The method uses information from first and second order proportions and estimates the model by generalized least-squares. Hypotheses regarding different degrees of invariance over groups may be evaluated by a large-sample chi-square test.The research of the first author was supported partly by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation under project Structural Equation Models in the Social Sciences, project director Karl G. Jöreskog, and partly by the Swedish Research Council in the Humanistic and Social Sciences under project Analysis of Contingency Tables, project director Bengt Muthén.     

Spirituality in Older Adults: A Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Perspective

The definition of spirituality poses a variety of problems for the development of theory and research, as well as practical problems for persons interested in promoting the spiritual well-being of older adults. Although any definition of spirituality is problematic, a definition is proposed that comes out of the writer's clinical experience and is relevant to his understanding of the aging process in different cultural and religious contexts. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the relevance of the definition to the experience of older persons from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Reflections on the case studies suggest ways that an appropriately trained advocate might have helped the persons in these illustrations make changes in their situations that might have improved the quality of their lives. Material from the case studies is also used to clarify differences among terms such as spirituality, religion, religiosity, and piety. The paper proposes to be a contribution to a theoretical foundation for studying and working with spirituality in older adults.     

Yes,Virginia, Lemons are Yellow

This paper discusses a number of themes and arguments in The Quest for Reality: Stroud's distinction between philosophical and ordinary questions about reality; the similarity he finds between the view that coloris unreal and the view that it is subjective; his argument against thesecondary quality theory; his argument against the error theory; and the disappointing conclusion of the book.     

Some aspects of eloquence in Descartes's works

In Descartes's philosophy, communicating scientific and philosophical truth does not represent a problem that can be traced back to humanistic rhetoric, meant as the art of persuasion. Descartes states his belief in the eloquence of reason: a clear, precise, and adequately expressed thought cannot fail to convince the listener. This is the measure of the distance between the level of truth and the level of opinion. However, the moment of confrontation with the public is also the very moment when the truth of the new knowledge enters into conflict with other, different conceptions. Education and history influence communication with the result that the distinction between intellectual conviction and persuasion becomes less straightforward. Rational eloquence, as Descartes is well aware, must be articulated in such a way as to avoid any possible language equivocation and to adopt exposition strategies ensuring effective access to readers. The aim of this paper is to illustrate some aspects of this tension as expressed by the writer Descartes with reference to a number of texts (from the Regulae to the Meditationes) that were essential for the elaboration and dissemination of his philosophy.     

A rose by any other name: Maintaining the name and highlighting the uniqueness of psychology as a health care profession

In this article, we reply to the comments made by Holden and Levant (preceding articles). While we agree with their goals of expanding the scope of practice of psychology, standardizing training, and educating the public and other health care professionals about the field of clinical psychology, we do not agree that changing the discipline's name to psychological physician is a necessary or sufficient means to these ends. We outline the bases for our disagreement with the name change proposal and provide other proposals for reaching the goals set forth by Holden and Levant.     

On finite approximability of ψ-intermediate logics

The aim of this note is to show (Theorem 1.6) that in each of the cases: = {, }, or {, , }, or {, , } there are uncountably many -intermediate logics which are not finitely approximable. This result together with the results known in literature allow us to conclude (Theorem 2.2) that for each : either all -intermediate logics are finitely approximate or there are uncountably many of them which lack the property.     

The family as portrayed on prime-time television, 1947–1990: Structure and characteristics

Successful family series across four decades of American prime-time television were examined. Family portrayals were defined as either conventional or nonconventional. Conventional families were categorized as couples without children and couples with children. Nonconventional families were categorized as single parent or contrived. Additional family characteristics were also recorded including sex of single parent, reason for singleness, social class status, females employed outside the home, live-ins, race, and whether the presentation was dramatic or comedic. The data show a trend toward more equal presentation of conventional and nonconventional families, few divorced or female single parents, and few minority families. Implications of findings are discussed and future research questions suggested.