When a Mother Is Depressed

Abstract

The literature related to mother-child interaction when a mother is depressed and a framework for addressing mother-child co-occupations for mothers with depression and their young children is provided. An in-depth case example that spans mother-infant occupation- based intervention during a short-term psychiatric hospitalization through home-based occupation-based intervention is provided.     

Skeptical Theism Unscathed: Why Skeptical Objections to Skeptical Theism Fail

Arguments from evil purport to show that some fact about evil makes it (at least) probable that God does not exist. Skeptical theism is held to undermine many versions of the argument from evil: it is thought to undermine a crucial inference that such arguments often rely on. Skeptical objections to skeptical theism claim that it (skeptical theism) entails an excessive amount of skepticism and therefore should be rejected. In this article, I show that skeptical objections to skeptical theism have a very limited scope: only those who reject certain (apparently) popular epistemological theories will be threatened by them.     

Skeptical rationalism

To improve our methods of rational inquiry and decision‐making we need to recognize that such methods should guide but not fully determine the choices of individuals. Failure to acknowledge the essential incompleteness of rational methods made the methods of Classical Rationalism quite impractical and opened them to skeptical refutation. Mitigated Skepticism and Fideism failed to correct the error, and as a result put undesirable limits on rational inquiry. When the guiding character of rational methods is recognized, existing methods of scientific research of personal and social decision‐making can themselves be rationally assessed and improved. Viewing rational methods as guides thus opens a whole field of inquiry, the inquiry into what rational methods are most useful for specific purposes and in specific situations.     

Skeptical Conclusions

For a putative knower S and a proposition P, two types of skepticism can be distinguished, depending on the conclusions they draw: outer skepticism, which concludes that S does not know that P, and inner skepticism, which concludes that S does not know whether P. This paper begins by showing that outer skepticism has undesirable consequences because that S does not know that P presupposes P, and inner skepticism does not have this undesirable consequence since that S does not know whether P does not presuppose P. We indicate that the two types of skepticism aim to different loci of doubts: while outer skepticism doubts whether we can gain an epistemic warrant for the actuality, inner skepticism doubts whether we can gain epistemic identification of the actuality. It is further indicated that responses to skepticism from externalist theories, as well as from fallibilist internalist theories, can only respond to outer skepticism but not to inner skepticism.     

Skeptical hypotheses and moral skepticism

Moral skeptics maintain that we do not have moral knowledge. Traditionally they haven't argued via skeptical hypotheses like those provided by perceptual skeptics about the external world, such as Descartes' deceiving demon. But some believe this can be done by appealing to hypotheses like moral nihilism. Moreover, some claim that skeptical hypotheses have special force in the moral case. But I argue that skeptics have failed to specify an adequate skeptical scenario, which reveals a general lesson: such arguments are not a promising avenue for moral skeptics to take. They're ultimately weaker when applied to morality compared to perception.     

A Refutation of Skeptical Theism

Skeptical theists argue that no seemingly unjustified evil (SUE) could ever lower the probability of God's existence at all. Why? Because God might have justifying reasons for allowing such evils (JuffREs) that are undetectable. However, skeptical theists are unclear regarding whether or not God's existence is relevant to the existence of JuffREs, and whether or not God's existence is relevant to their detectability. But I will argue that, no matter how the skeptical theist answers these questions, it is undeniable that the skeptical theist is wrong; SUEs lower the probability of God's existence. To establish this, I will consider the four scenarios regarding the relevance of God's existence to the existence and detectability of JuffREs, and show that in each—after we establish our initial probabilities, and then update them given the evidence of a SUE—the probability of God's existence drops.     

Backward Sensory Preconditioning When Reinforcement Is Delayed

In two experiments rats received an initial phase of training in which two neutral stimuli were presented as a serial compound (A-X). In a second phase, Awas established as a signal for a shock reinforcer, the shock being presented immediately after the termination of A (the immediate condition) or after a 5-sec interval (the trace condition). A final test phase showed that not only A but also X was capable of evoking conditioned suppression (a backward sensory preconditioning effect). The degree of suppression evoked by X was not correlated with that evoked by A. In both experiments the A trained with immediate reinforcement was more suppressive than that trained with the trace procedure, but in Experiment 1 the trace and immediate groups did not differ in the response they showed to X, and in Experiment 2 (which allowed a within-subject comparison) the trace procedure resulted in more suppression to X than did immediate conditioning of A. These results disconfirm the suggestion that the backward sensory preconditioning effect depends on the formation of an associative chain: X-A-shock. They are consistent with the proposal that the associatively activated representation of X is able to form a direct association with the reinforcer during A-shock training.     

怀疑探索与宗教

当代怀疑论运动(包括CSICOP组织)历来关注的焦点在于超常现象的声称上,并对此类现象的解释取得了长足的进步。怀疑论者同样需要应用怀疑的探索对宗教的声称———我称之为超自然声称———进行检验。在最近的几年里,我们已经从自然的观点解释了有关当前流行的不可思议现象的报告。我认为,怀疑的探索者们还需要对宗教的历史性声称再次进行检验。当然有人对于宗教声称进行科学检验的想法提出了道德上的异议,但是这种异议不应该妨碍对它们(宗教声称)的详查。况且,科学经常能够提供自然的道德的选择。     

Yet Another Skeptical Solution

Philosophia - The paper puts forward a new skeptical solution to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, a solution which revolves around the idea that human communication does...     

Why Theists Cannot Accept Skeptical Theism

In recent years skeptical theism has gained currency amongst theists as a way to escape the problem of evil by invoking putatively reasonable skepticism concerning our ability to know that instances of apparently gratuitous evil are unredeemed by morally sufficient reasons known to God alone. After explicating skeptical theism through the work of Stephen Wykstra and William Alston, I present a cumulative-case argument designed to show that skeptical theism cannot be accepted by theists insofar as it crucially undermines epistemic license to the very theism it is invoked to defend. I also argue that attempts to defend a theism-friendly moderate version of skeptical theism either fail to halt the spread of damaging skepticism, or lack philosophical validity.

Skeptical theism and value judgments

One of the most prominent objections to skeptical theism in recent literature is that the skeptical theist is forced to deny our competency in making judgments about the all-things-considered value of any natural event. Some skeptical theists accept that their view has this implication, but argue that it is not problematic. I think that there is reason to question the implication itself. I begin by explaining the objection to skeptical theism and the standard response to it. I then identify an assumption that is prevalent in much of the literature concerning the problem of evil, and show that it is a factor in motivating commitment to the implication I mean to question. I argue that the assumption is false, and that once it is rejected there is room to endorse the skeptical theist’s strategy in responding to some arguments from evil without endorsing the putative implication that objectors find unacceptable.