How Homeric is the Aristotelian Conception of Courage?

When Aristotle limits the manifestation of true courage to the military context only, his primary target is an overly inclusive conception of courage presented by Plato in the Laches. At the same time, Aristotle explicitly tries to demarcate his ideal of genuine courage from the paradigmatic examples of courageous actions derived from the Homeric epics. It remains questionable, though, whether Aristotle is truly earnest in his efforts to distance himself from Homer. It will be argued that Aristotle's attempt to associate with Homer the two forms of specious courage—courage of the citizen troops and spirit‐caused courage—fails to provide sufficient criteria for the demarcation in question. All the essential elements of the Aristotelian account of courage, such as a voluntary choice, a noble goal, and a thumos‐driven reaction guided by reason are exemplified by a number of Homeric characters as well. It is thus likely that the philosopher's account of courage largely incorporates the poetic tradition at a new level, rather than supersedes it.     

How social is the social psychology of emotion?

Two classic studies published 50 years ago showed how other people provide information that shapes the activation and interpretation of emotions. The present paper traces development of the social psychology of emotions from this starting point. Subsequent research into group-based and social appraisal has advanced understanding of the impact of social information on emotions and suggested new ways of investigating associated phenomena. Although potential integrations of interpersonal and group-oriented approaches offer promise for the future, the continuing focus on emotions as cognitively mediated effects of social factors should broaden to encompass dynamic relational processes.     

How new is the new philosophy of psychiatry?

In their recent paper, Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton evaluate seven volumes of the Oxford University Press series “International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry,” an international book series begun in 2003 focusing on the emerging interdisciplinary field at the interface of philosophy and psychiatry. According to Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton, the series represents a clear indication that the interdisciplinary field of philosophy of psychiatry has been flourishing lately. Philosophers and psychiatrists face a “new philosophy of psychiatry”. However, the optimism which the “new” philosophy of psychiatry celebrates is precisely the exiling of philosophy from the foundations of psychiatry. The 150 year old belief that psychopathology cannot do without philosophical reflection has virtually disappeared from common psychiatric education and daily clinical practice. Though the discipline of psychiatry is particularly suited to contributions from philosophy, the impact of philosophy on psychiatry nowadays remains limited. With some exceptions, philosophical papers are embedded in a philosophical context inscrutable to ordinary psychiatrists. Much current philosophical work is perceived by psychiatrists as negativistic. I would encourage the field of psychiatry to incorporate once again basic philosophical attitudes which render possible true dialogue with philosophy and enrich both disciplines. The views developed here should not discredit the value and importance of Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton’s paper and the excellent series “International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry.” As Jaspers said “Everybody inclined to disregard philosophy will be overwhelmed by philosophy in an unperceived way”.     

How European is the European Journal of Developmental Psychology?

This paper tries to make clear why a European journal of developmental psychology makes sense. First it is explained that so-called European culture is a complicated matter: historically and culturally many fault lines are to be detected, from the borders of the Roman empire to the iron curtain. These fault lines separate different cultural areas within Europe.

Developmental thinking came into existence within the eighteenth century (Enlightenment), especially with the work of Rousseau, which offered the theoretical building blocks for Western education and for modern Piagetian developmental psychology. Empirical developmental research found its origins in Germany, especially in Jena, with the work of William Preyer. The Jena ideas were brought to the USA by Stanley Hall. And in the twentieth century the Rousseau–Piaget tradition was brought to the USA by John Flavell.

A European Society for Developmental Psychology and its flagship the European Journal of Developmental Psychology should devote itself to the study of the European roots of developmental psychology as well as contributing to European developmental psychology, which in an open, new Europe moves across the original fault lines.     

How is God-talk logically possible? A sketch for an argument on the logic of ‘God’

In this paper I want to argue for the optimal way to characterise the logical and semantical behaviour of the singular term ‘God’ used in religious language. The relevance of this enterprise to logical theory is the main focus as well. Doing this presupposes to outline the two rivaling approaches of well-definition of singular terms: Kripke’s (“rigid designators”) and Hintikka’s (“world-lines”). ‘God’ as a “rigid designator” is purified from all real-life-language-games of identification and only spells out a metaphysical tag, which favours the view of “anything goes”. Instead, ‘God’ as a “world-line,” plus two ways of quantification, is much more flexible to theological traditions, teachings of the church, religious practices and personal feelings. Thus, it provides a sufficiently well-defined singular term for the purposes of logical theory. The whole sketch is based on Jaakko Hintikka’s logical ideas, mainly on his responses to different authors in PJH. I have systematically omitted direct references to his texts because I have modified considerably his ideas for my own purposes.     

How fallacious is the consequence fallacy?

Timothy Williamson argues against the tactic of criticizing confidence in a theory by identifying a logical consequence of the theory whose probability is not raised by the evidence. He dubs it “the consequence fallacy”. In this paper, we will show that Williamson’s formulation of the tactic in question is ambiguous. On one reading of Williamson’s formulation, the tactic is indeed a fallacy, but it is not a commonly used tactic; on another reading, it is a commonly used tactic (or at least more often used than the former tactic), but it is not a fallacy.     

How Revolutionary is the Holy Spirit?

Most theologians agree that the early church neglected the Holy Spirit in formulations of the Trinity, and in recent years, many books have been written to redress this deficiency. Pentecostal theologians are especially invested in recovering a fuller doctrine of the Holy Spirit. These two monographs, one by an established scholar (Steve Studebaker) and the other by a relative newcomer (Andrew Gabriel), are among the best on this topic. Both are unafraid to be critical of Pentecostal theology and both are valuable for their specificity. Gabriel revises the divine attributes of classical theism while Studebaker goes even further by arguing that the Holy Spirit constitutes the Trinity. Neither author is sympathetic to Social Trinitarianism, and Studebaker in particular is critical of Richard of Saint Victor, who is often credited as an early progenitor of the social model. This first complete translation of Richard's treatise on the Trinity, by Ruben Angelici, reveals a radical view of the Holy Spirit and thus needs to be taken seriously by all future discussions of this topic. Richard not only gives the Holy Spirit its own personal identity but also ties the Spirit to God's power of listening, just as the Son is God's Word.     

How Critical is the Dialectical Tier?

This paper addresses the issue of the relationship between Ralph Johnson’s idea of dialectical tier and the critical scrutiny function in argument. We first give a concise articulation of the critical view of argument, and then probe into both the apparent similarities and deep discrepancies between the critical view of argument and Johnson’s views on the dialectical tier and manifest rationality. On that basis, we disprove the conjecture that the presence of a dialectical tier indicates that the thesis in argument is critically established. However, we also urge to bridge together the critical view of argument and Johnson’s theory of argument, and thereby to make the dialectical tier critical in nature. We argue that this could be a promising proposal, and conclude with some remarks on exploring the critical dimension within our current study of argument.     

False recognition of associates: How robust is the effect?

False recognition of nonpresented words that were strong associates of 12 words in a study list was examined. Six lists were read to subjects; each list contained the 12 strongest associates to a critical nonpresented word. False-alarm rates to the 6 critical nonpresented words were obtained under several different conditions. The manipulations included varying the level of processing done to the study lists, varying the recognition-test procedure, repeating each of the study lists three times, and mixing the words from the six study lists together. A reliable false-recognition effect for critical nonpresented words was obtained in all conditions. However, the effect was not impervious to all of the manipulations. Significantly lower false recognition was obtained when learning was incidental as well as when the words on the six lists were mixed together. Neither level of processing nor repetition significantly influenced false recognition. This last result is inconsistent with Hintzman’s (1988) MINERVA 2 global memory model, but agrees with predictions from Shiffrin, Ratcliff, and Clark’s (1990) SAM model.     

How will things be the next time? Self in the construction of future events among school-aged children

This study examined among school-aged children the role of the self in perceived valence changes from the past to the future. Nine- to 11-year-old children (N = 57) recalled positive and negative personal events of various situations and imagined a future personal event involving the same situation following each recall. Children’s self-knowledge was assessed in terms of self-concepts for past, present, and future selves, and self-evaluations for social and cognitive competences. Children who viewed their future selves more positively and those who evaluated their cognitive competence more positively anticipated greater upward (positive) changes and smaller downward (negative) changes in their future academic performance. Children who evaluated their social competence more positively anticipated greater upward changes in their future peer relations. Furthermore, children who anticipated greater upward changes and smaller downward changes in their personal futures exhibited greater well-being. These findings shed new light on the role of self in mental time travel.     

How effective is workplace counselling? A review of the research literature

The provision of counselling for work‐related problems has expanded in recent years, as organisations have recognised the value of this approach to staff support. However, there has been relatively little research into the outcomes of workplace counselling, and no systematic reviews have been conducted into the effectiveness of counselling in this setting. This paper presents the results of a preliminary review of evidence in this area. 34 studies of the effectiveness of workplace counselling were identified, of which 16 were sufficiently well designed to be considered as comprising reliable findings. The results of these studies suggest that, in general, workplace counselling is effective for clients for a wide variety of type and severity of presenting problems, employed across a range of different organisational contexts. The paper includes discussion of methodological issues associated with this research, recommendations for further research, and implications for practice.