Associations Between Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder,Externalizing Disorders,and Suicide-Related Behaviors

Borderline personality disorder and externalizing disorders are associated with suicide-related behaviors. The present study examined whether symptoms of borderline personality disorder mediate the relationship between externalizing disorders and suicide-related behaviors. Diagnostic interviews were administered to 344 participants (n = 233 women). Results indicated that symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, alcohol use disorders, and drug use disorders each were significantly associated with suicide threats and self-injurious behavior in women and symptoms of antisocial personality disorder were associated with suicide attempts in women. With the exception of the association between symptoms of alcohol dependence and self-injurious behaviors, borderline personality disorder symptoms mediated or partially mediated all associations between externalizing disorders and suicide-related behaviors in women. These results highlight the importance of assessment and treatment of borderline personality disorder symptoms in individuals with externalizing disorders, particularly in the presence of suicide-related behaviors.

Are There Stable Factors in Preadolescent Girls’ Externalizing Behaviors?

Relatively little is known about the factor structure of disruptive behavior among preadolescent girls. The present study reports on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of disruptive girl behavior over four successive data waves as rated by parents and teachers in a large, representative community sample of girls (N = 2,451). Five factors were identified from parent ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, relational aggression, and callous-unemotional behaviors), and four factors were identified derived from teacher ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems/callous-unemotional behaviors, inattention, hyperactivityimpulsivity, and relational aggression). There was a high degree of consistency of items loading on equivalent factors across parent and teacher ratings. Year-to-year stability of factors between ages five and 12 was high for parent ratings (ICC = 0.70 to 0.88), and slightly lower for teacher ratings (ICC = 0.56 to 0.83). These findings are discussed in terms of possible adjustment to the criteria for children's disruptive behavior disorders found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

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Phenomenology and the Third Generation of Cognitive Science: Towards a Cognitive Phenomenology of the Body

Phenomenology of the body and the third generation of cognitive science, both of which attribute a central role in human cognition to the body rather than to the Cartesian notion of representation, face the criticism that higher-level cognition cannot be fully grasped by those studies. The problem here is how explicit representations, consciousness, and thoughts issue from perception and the body, and how they cooperate in human cognition. In order to address this problem, we propose a research program, a cognitive phenomenology of the body, which is basically motivated by the perspective of Merleau-Ponty. We find a substantial clue in developmental psychological studies on the body and language.

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Permissibility and Violable Rules

From a logical point of view, permissibility can be reduced to possibility by introducing demands which can be met. The alleged reduction is circular from a philosophical perspective, however, because demands are fundamentally deontic. This paper solves this problem by replacing demands which can be met with rules which can be satisfied and violated.

On the Proximity of the Logical and ‘Objective Bayesian’ Interpretations of Probability

In his Bayesian Nets and Causality, Jon Williamson presents an ‘Objective Bayesian’ interpretation of probability, which he endeavours to distance from the logical interpretation yet associate with the subjective interpretation. In doing so, he suggests that the logical interpretation suffers from severe epistemological problems that do not affect his alternative. In this paper, I present a challenge to his analysis. First, I closely examine the relationship between the logical and ‘Objective Bayesian’ views, and show how, and why, they are highly similar. Second, I argue that the logical interpretation is not manifestly inferior, at least for the reasons that Williamson offers. I suggest that the key difference between the logical and ‘Objective Bayesian’ views is in the domain of the philosophy of logic; and that the genuine disagreement appears to be over Platonism versus nominalism (within weak psychologism).

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Thinking as the control of imagination: a conceptual framework for goal-directed systems

This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmental pathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internal modeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple action alternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of executive functions such as inhibition, the monitoring of progresses, and working memory, are required for this system to work. Further, we elaborate on the idea that the off-line re-enactment of anticipatory mechanisms used for action control gives rise to (embodied) mental simulations, and propose that thinking consists essentially in controlling mental simulations rather than directly controlling behavior and perceptions. We conclude by sketching an evolutionary perspective of this process, proposing that anticipation leveraged cognition, and by highlighting specific predictions of our model.

Beliefs in conditionals vs. conditional beliefs

On the basis of impossibility results on probability, belief revision, and conditionals, it is argued that conditional beliefs differ from beliefs in conditionals qua mental states. Once this is established, it will be pointed out in what sense conditional beliefs are still conditional, even though they may lack conditional contents, and why it is permissible to still regard them as beliefs, although they are not beliefs in conditionals. Along the way, the main logical, dispositional, representational, and normative properties of conditional beliefs are studied, and it is explained how the failure of not distinguishing conditional beliefs from beliefs in conditionals can lead philosophical and empirical theories astray.

Husserl on Analyticity and Beyond

Quine’s criticism of the notion of analyticity applies, at best, to Carnap’s notion, not to those of Frege or Husserl. The failure of logicism is also the failure of Frege’s definition of analyticity, but it does not even touch Husserl’s views, which are based on logical form. However, some relatively concrete number-theoretic statements do not admit such a formalization salva veritate. A new definition of analyticity based not on syntactical but on semantical logical form is proposed and argued for.

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Institutional Insights for Analysing Strategic Manoeuvring in the British Prime Minister’s Question Time

This paper aims at creating an adequate theoretical basis for a systematic integration of institutional insights into the pragma-dialectical analysis of argumentative exchanges that occur in institutionalised contexts. The argumentative practice of Prime Minister’s Question Time in the British House of Commons is examined, as a case in point, in order to illustrate how the knowledge of the characteristics of an institution, its rules and conventions can be integrated into the pragma-dialectical analysis. The paper highlights the role that theoretical concepts and tools such as strategic manoeuvring, argumentative activity types and dialectical profiles play in this integration.

Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics

In this introduction we discuss the motivation behind the workshop “Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics” of which this special issue constitutes the proceedings. We elaborate on historical and empirical aspects of the desired new epistemology, connect it to the public image of mathematics, and give a summary and an introduction to the contributions to this issue.

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The Logical Basis of the Tractarian Ontology

This paper focuses on the relation between logic and ontology. In particular, it demonstrates how classical logical theory can clarify the ontological part of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. To this end, the work examines the adequacy of a formal system that was devised by the Polish logician, mathematician and philosopher Roman Suszko (1919–1979) as a model for the Tractatus. Following a brief explanation of the Tractarian ontology, the main ideas of Suszko’s system and its philosophical significance will be considered. The latter will be illustrated in the context of central Tractarian concepts. Finally, two implications for a better understanding of the Tractarian ontology will be pointed out.

Comorbidity of Personality Disorders and Somatization Disorder: A Meta-analytic Review

Meta-analysis of studies assessing the comorbidity of somatization disorder (SD) with one or more personality disorders (PDs) revealed that-contrary to the assertions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition, text revision)-SD co-occurs with the majority of Axis II PDs. Although comorbidity effect sizes (rs) linking SD with paranoid PD and obsessive-compulsive PD were small, effect sizes for antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, avoidant, and dependent PD yielded rs about or above 0.20. Comorbidity information in future versions of the DSM should be revised to reflect the greater number of PDs empirically linked with SD.

Facet-like Structures in Computer Science

This paper discusses how facet-like structures occur as a commonplace feature in a variety of computer science disciplines as a means for structuring class hierarchies. The paper then focuses on a mathematical model for facets (and class hierarchies in general), called formal concept analysis, and discusses graphical representations of faceted systems based on this model.

Analyzing a priori knowledge

There are four approaches to analyzing the concept of a priori knowledge. The primary target of the reductive approach is the concept of a priori justification. The primary target of the nonreductive approach is the concept of a priori knowledge. There are two approaches to analyzing each primary target. A theory-neutral approach provides an analysis that does not presuppose any general theory of knowledge or justification. A theory-laden approach provides an analysis that does presuppose some general theory of knowledge or justification (call it the background theory). Those who embrace a theory-laden analysis incur a special burden: they must separate the features of their analysis that are constitutive of the a priori from those that are constitutive of the background theory. My goal is to illustrate how the failure to separate these features leads to erroneous conclusions about the nature of a priori knowledge.

Emergence

Here I offer a precise analysis of what it takes for a property to count as emergent. The features widely considered crucial to emergence include novelty, unpredictability, supervenience, relationality, and downward causal influence. By acknowledging each of these distinctive features, the definition provided below captures an important sense in which the whole can be more than the sum of its parts.

Interpreting Neurath’s Protocols. Reply to Nottelmann

This paper responds to a recent criticism of Uebel's analysis of Neurath's protocol statements and proposes some independent amendments.

Experimental philosophy and philosophical intuition

The topic is experimental philosophy as a naturalistic movement, and its bearing on the value of intuitions in philosophy. This paper explores first how the movement might bear on philosophy more generally, and how it might amount to something novel and promising. Then it turns to one accomplishment repeatedly claimed for it already: namely, the discrediting of armchair intuitions as used in philosophy.

Die Geschichte der „Stellungnahme zur psychoanalytischen Therapie“

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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The Prevalence of Anxiety Disorders Among Adults with Asthma: A Meta-Analytic Review

Research estimating the comorbidity of asthma and anxiety disorders has produced highly disparate findings and little consensus. This study is a meta-analytic review of data from 15 independent studies of the co-occurrence of adult asthma and anxiety disorders and was conducted to provide more precise comorbidity estimates. Aggregating across studies, the average prevalence of any anxiety disorder among adults with asthma was 34%, indicating a strong relationship between the two conditions in general. More specifically, the prevalence of panic attacks (25%), panic disorder (12%), agoraphobia (12%), and generalized anxiety disorder (9%) were considerably higher among adults with asthma than in the general population. However, additional analyses yielded prevalence estimates for specific phobia (10%), social phobia (7%) and posttraumatic stress disorder (6%) comparable to or lower than rates observed in the population at large. Attention to psychiatric symptoms should be a crucial component of asthma management, as anxiety disorders appear to be highly prevalent among persons with asthma and may be associated with increased asthma morbidity.