Consider the source: One step in assessing premise acceptability

Premise acceptability is conceptually connected to presumption. To say that a premise is acceptable just when there is a presumption in its favor is to give a first approximation to this connection. A number of popular principles of presumption suggest that whether there is a presumption for a premise, belief, or claim depends on the sources which vouch for it. Sources consist of internal belief-generating mechanisms and external testimony. Alvin Plantinga's notion of warrant lays down four conditions upon a source for the belief which it generates to be warranted. We argue that there is a presumption for a premise, belief, or claim if and only if there is a presumption of warrant for that premise,belief or claim. This amounts to the thesis that there is a presumption for a belief from a challenger's point of view if and only if there is a presumption from that person's point of view that her cognitive faculties which have generated the belief have been functioning properly, in an appropriate cognitive environment, in accord with a segment of her design plan aimed at the truth, and that these faculties are reliable. In light of our argument for this thesis, we may legitimately claim that one way to determine that there is a presumption for a belief is to determine that there is a presumption of warrant for that belief, and thus that in determining whether there is a presumption for a belief or premise, we may consider the source.     

Tradition religieuse et capacité de pardon

Forgiveness is a fundamental ingredient of everyday life. This article is intended to present, in a synthetic way, a number of recent works having empirically determined the relationship between religious tradition and forgivingness. To forgive is basically to give something to someone. For/give is the equivalent of the latin per/donare. Forgiveness is the gift of one's right to resentment after having been the victim of an offense. Forgiveness has been empirically investigated in two ways. The first approach specifically considered forgiveness as a possible answer to a given situation. The second approach considered forgiveness as a philosophy of life, as a habit; that is, as a personality trait. The studies reported in this article illustrate this second approach. A three-factor model of forgivingness is presented: lasting resentment, sensitivity to the circumstances of the offence, and unconditional forgiveness. It is shown that this model nicely fit empirical data from samples of persons grown up either in the Buddhist tradition, or in the Christian tradition, or in the Hindu tradition. It is also shown that among people grown up in the Muslim tradition this model must be adjusted to reflect the unique character of this tradition: Islam is both a religious and a political tradition. In brief, people whose spiritual references are either Buddhist or Christian or Hindu must be aware that if a conflict, even a minor one, opposes them to Muslims, a particular attention will be attributed to their apologizing behavior and to their efforts to repair the wrong committed. Forgiveness will probably be granted only after the offender has satisfied a number of conditions. Symmetrically, people whose references are Muslim must be aware that, if a conflict opposes them to people grown up in the other traditions, all the circumstances of the situation will probably play a more or less similar role (intention, apology, social proximity) and that forgiveness may be unconditionally granted. Unconditional forgiveness exists, at least in theory, in these traditions: it is not regarded as a weakness or as an immoral disposition.     

Jung in the academy: devotions and resistances

Jung's position in the contemporary mainstream English-speaking university is problematical indeed. For various historical and ideological reasons, Jung is generally not included in the courses in academic psychology, and in the humanities and social sciences his reception is lukewarm to say the least. He has only a marginal place in religious studies. This notorious academic resistance to Jung is compensated, some would say overcompensated, by student interest and enthusiasm, which sometimes seeks to make a religious dogma out of Jung's psychology. In a sense, cynical resistance to Jung and fanatical devotion to Jung can be seen to generate each other in a sort of binary opposition. This situation is unfortunate because neither extreme presents a fair or balanced view of Jung's thought or of his contribution to intellectual history. These and other problems associated with the teaching of Jung in a university setting are briefly outlined in this paper.     

Reinforcement magnitude and the inhibiting effect of reinforcement

In a two-key concurrent variable-interval schedule (using pigeons), if the reinforcement frequency for one response is held constant while that for the other is increased, the rate of response on the constant key decreases. The immediate reinforcement for key pecking can usually be conceptualized as the change from a condition in which the key light is on and the food hopper light is off to one in which the key light is off and the hopper light is on. The prechange condition is associated with a delay to food of one-half the average interreinforcement interval in effect during this condition. The postchange condition is associated with a delay to food of about .5 seconds. The programming of additional reinforcement results in a decrease in the delay to food associated with the prechange stimulus condition, and thus a decrease in the value of the improvement that results from the change. This would appear to be analogous to a decrease in the amount of reinforcement, and thus sufficient explanation for the decrease in the rate of the response.     

Truth as Translation – Part A

According to Tarski's Convention T, the adequacy of a truth definition is (implicitly) defined relatively to a translation mapping from the object language to the metalanguage; the translation mapping itself is left unspecified. This paper restates Convention T in a form in which the relativity to translation is made explicit. The notion of an interpreted language is introduced, and a corresponding notion of a translation between interpreted languages is defined. The latter definition is stated both in an algebraic version, and in an equivalent possible worlds version. It is a consequence of our definition that translation is indeterminate in certain cases. Finally, we give an application of our revised version of Convention T and show that interpreted languages exist, which allow for vicious self-reference but which nevertheless contain their own truth predicate. This is possible if only truth is based on a nonstandard translation mapping by which, e.g., the Liar sentence is translated to its own negation. In this part of the paper this existence result is proved only for languages without quantifiers; in Part B the result will be extended to first-order languages.     

Modeling Information Content Via Dirichlet-Multinomial Regression Analysis

Shannon entropy is being increasingly used in biomedical research as an index of complexity and information content in sequences of symbols, e.g. languages, amino acid sequences, DNA methylation patterns and animal vocalizations. Yet, distributional properties of information entropy as a random variable have seldom been the object of study, leading to researchers mainly using linear models or simulation-based analytical approach to assess differences in information content, when entropy is measured repeatedly in different experimental conditions. Here a method to perform inference on entropy in such conditions is proposed. Building on results coming from studies in the field of Bayesian entropy estimation, a symmetric Dirichlet-multinomial regression model, able to deal efficiently with the issue of mean entropy estimation, is formulated. Through a simulation study the model is shown to outperform linear modeling in a vast range of scenarios and to have promising statistical properties. As a practical example, the method is applied to a data set coming from a real experiment on animal communication.     

Homelessness and the problem of containment

Homelessness is a problem that is hardly spared to any society in our modern world. Usually discussed by people concerned with social policy, sociology, public health and politics, homelessness has only quite recently begun to command the attention of professionals concerned with psychological and psychotherapeutic processes. Following from the author's experience of working therapeutically with homeless people, as well as in discussions with homeless services, the paper follows a line of thinking around homelessness that is explicitly psychodynamic in orientation. The central argument here is that homelessness is an experience that is, so to speak, waiting to happen. Homelessness is portrayed as a natural extension of an underlying experience of the sister states of uncontainment and alienation. I argue that the homeless person not only experienced a lack of containment in his earliest interactions, but has grown through life with significant difficulties in this area. Homelessness then is an extreme response to a deeper psychological reality that projects into a part of the person's life the agonies associated with uncontainment. Homelessness is the realization of an internal situation –a shifting of a personal struggle into a new and more visible stage. This view of homelessness is designed to provide an amendment to current views that privilege the roles of poverty and social exclusion in the origins of homelessness rather than as an alternative account of the origins of homelessness.     

The epistemic implications of engineering rhetoric

The texts (and talk) of engineers take different forms. In this essay, I present and critique several texts written for different purposes and audiences but all intended to convey to the reader the technical details of whatever they are about—whether a textbook passage describing the fundamental behavior of an electrical component, a journal article about a mathematical technique intended for use in design optimization, a memo to co-workers within a firm about a heat transfer analysis of a remotely sited building, or a general introduction to the field of? ergonomics? My aim is to explore how the ways in which engineers describe and document their problems and projects frame what they accept, display and profess as useful knowledge. In this I am particularly interested in how engineers envision the ‘users’ of, or participants in, their productions. Like science, engineering texts are written as if they were timeless and untainted by socio-cultural features. However, a technical treatise is not devoid of metaphor or creative rendering of events; there is always a narrative within which worldly data and instrumental logic is embedded—but it is a story in which the passive voice prevails, history is irrelevant, and the human actor or agent is painted in quantitative parameters fitting the occasion. Whether this rhetoric can be sustained in the face of challenges to traditional ways of doing engineering is an open question.     

Cogmic space for narrative-based world representation

Representing a world or a physical/social environment in an agent’s cognitive system is essential for creating human-like artificial intelligence. This study takes a story-centered approach to this issue. In this context, a story refers to an internal representation involving a narrative structure, which is assumed to be a common form of organizing past, present, future, and fictional events and situations. In the artificial intelligence field, a story or narrative is traditionally treated as a symbolic representation. However, a symbolic story representation is limited in its representational power to construct a rich world. For example, a symbolic story representation is unfit to handle the sensory/bodily dimension of a world. In search of a computational theory for narrative-based world representation, this study proposes the conceptual framework of a Cogmic Space for a comic strip-like representation of a world. In the proposed framework, a story is positioned as a mid-level representation, in which the conceptual and sensory/bodily dimensions of a world are unified. The events and their background situations that constitute a story are unified into a sequence of panels. Based on this structure, a representation (i.e., a story) and the represented environment are connected via an isomorphism of their temporal, spatial, and relational structures. Furthermore, the framework of a Cogmic Space is associated with the generative aspect of representations, which is conceptualized in terms of unconscious- and conscious-level processes/representations. Finally, a proof-of-concept implementation is presented to provide a concrete account of the proposed framework.     

The analyst's anxieties in the first interview: Barriers against analytic presence

To answer the questions: why don't more people enter analysis and how do we get more people to do so? Attention is drawn to anxieties in the analyst that become obstacles to the initiation of analysis. The main focus of the paper is how to understand why analysts, irrespective of patient characteristics, seem to have resistances against embarking on analysis. Being a meeting between strangers the consultation activates strong emotional reactions in both parties. One way of coping is defensively to diagnose, assess and exclude instead of being present as an analyst. The analytic frame of a consultation is ambiguous, and a secure analytic function is needed in order to meet the openness and unpredictability of this frame. A fragile psychoanalytic identity is seen as central to analysts' failure to create an analytic practice; it takes years to develop and maintain a robust analytic function, and analytic work continues to cause disturbing emotional reactions in the analyst. Analysts' vulnerable identity is also linked to the history of psychoanalysis that has fostered an ideal of analytic practice that is omnipotent and impossible to reach. Therefore it is no wonder that attempts to reach a convinced recommendation of analysis can become diverted in the process of consultation. Confronting these inner impediments in order to strengthen the analytic identity is suggested as a better way to get more analytic patients than to keep looking for so‐called analysability in patients.     

A Theology of the Cross and Ministry in Our Time: How Do You Call a Thing What It Is When You Don't Know What the Thing Is?

Abstract :  This article explores our cultural context and the issues it raises for ministry and theology in our time, especially as it relates to a theology of the cross. By drawing on the work of Jean Baudrillard the article asserts that we live in a time of hyper-reality, when nihilism is ever-present under the thin crust of our entertainment and information-saturated society. In responding to this world, it is argued that a theology of the cross has too often been misappropriated to serve as justification for taking on either the style of a postmodern aesthetic, which provides people a brand in new, hip forms of ministry, or adopting a fundamentalist stance, which provides people with a foundation in a world where it seems there is nowhere stable to stand. By returning to Luther's Heidelberg disputation, it is argued that "calling a thing what it is" in thesis 21 is not a style or foundation, but the invitation to enter (and do theology and ministry) in the nihilism of despair. Therefore, ministry and theology in our time should begin in the nihilism (the nihilism of the crucified Christ).     

The ‘redefinition of death’ debate: Western concepts and western bioethics

Biomedicine is a global enterprise constructed upon the belief in the universality of scientific truths. However, despite huge scientific advances over recent decades it has not been able to formulate a specific and universal definition of death: In fact, in its attempt to redefine death, the concept of death appears to have become immersed in ever increasing vagueness and ambiguity. Even more worrisome is that bioethics, in the form of principlism, is also endeavouring to become a global enterprise by claiming neutrality. It appears that the discourse within both disciplines have similarly manipulated the boundaries of death to include the “dying”. This paper argues that the redefinition of death debate in biomedicine reveals a concept of personhood which is profoundly western in origin and which is in accordance to the concept adhered to within principlism. Biomedicine and bioethics do not appear to acknowledge the limitations of their own world view and hence lack an understanding of their applicability and appropriateness in diverse social and cultural contexts; a situation which adds credence to claims as to the hegemonic and imperialistic nature of all such global enterprises. Ms. Jones is an intensive care clinical nursing specialist. Dr. Kessel is a public health physician and medical ethicist.     

Christian Adoption?

Abstract : Adoption is not a uniquely Christian practice, but it is a distinctly Christian act when grounded in the traditions of neighbor love and familial belonging. An orphaned child is a neighbor in need, and adoption is a fitting response to meeting this need. Caritas is the initial motive prompting this response but is not a disinterested provisional of parental care. Rather it is oriented toward parental love and familial belonging. Consequently, this Christian understanding of adoption should be preserved as a uniquely moral act in order to prevent orphaned children from being reduced to a means of remedying childlessness, or the using of adopted children as a wedge for justifying unwarranted governmental intrusion into the family.     

Functionalism and type-type identity theories

Conclusion Token-token identity theorists do not and need not deny that it may frequently be the same (kind of) brain state which on different occasions fills the functional rôle definitive of a given mental state. That is not at issue. What is at issue is whether functionally-oriented identity theorists should make two claims or three claims.The two claims they customarily make are, first, that each instance of a mental state is an instance of a brain state, and, secondly, that being in a mental state is having in one a state filling the relevant functional rôle. But to be in a mental state is to have that state in one. To be in pain is to have pain, to desire water is to have desire for water, and so on; just as to be poisoned is to have poison in you. (It is to have what is poison for you at the time, of course; and likewise for pain, desire and so on.)Our paper has been about a third sort of claim — relating particularly not to being in a mental state, nor to instances of that state, but to the mental state itself. We have argued that functionally-oriented identity theorists can and should make, in addition to the first two claims, the third type-type identity claim that mental states are brain states. Consequently a token brain state is a token of pain in a derivative sense. What makes it a token of pain is that it is a token of the type of brain state which realizes the pain-rôle for the organism at the time.     

Are Nativists a Different Kind of Democrat? Democratic Values and “Outsiders” in Japan

This paper combines three elements: a discussion of democratic values and the status of outsiders in Japanese political culture, the development of new measures to examine sensitive issues of nativism and foreigner perception in Japan, and an empirical exploration of the relationship between democratic values and antipathy toward outsiders. Two forms of democratic orientation were investigated in a sample of about 1,000 university students in Japan: a defensive version, which adheres to the formalistic requirements of democracy but is exclusionary and illiberal, and a universalist version that is liberal and tolerant. A defensive orientation is associated with greater chauvinism, a greater sense of threat emanating from foreigners, and a heightened anxiety about economic competition. A universalist orientation is associated with low perceived threat and low chauvinism, a lack of fear of economic competition, and a positive view of the cultural contributions of outsiders. Nativism may indeed be compatible with democratic values, but only with the defensive, exclusionary form. In short, the defensive form is democracy for xenophobes. Such an orientation is not unique to Japan, but is likely to be found in developing democracies as well as in advanced democracies that feel threatened.     

The instinct to teach: Altruism or aggression?

In this paper, the term ‘teaching’ means activities which induce a specific change in the behavior of a member of the same species, and are adapted until the pupil reaches a certain standard of performance. Teaching in this sense is confined to man, with one group of exceptions. Other forms of social learning are observed among the mammals and even the buds. The most important is imitation, or learning by observation. Teaching by other species always involves punishment, and always leads to the separation or spacing out of individuals. It occurs 1) at weaning, 2) in maintaining status within a group, and 3) in territorial behavior. In each case an animal is punished for approaching another. Man is distinguished by using punishment not only as a deterrent but also in the teaching of skills. Such conduct is sometimes called aggressive. To give it this name is to put teaching (by punishment) in the same class as socially undesirable acts. Such a usage obscures questions that can profitably be asked. Children learn much by imitation, and are encouraged to do so. But teaching of skills (usually not by punishment) and of customs seems to be universal in human communities, both primitive and advanced. To say that there is an instinct or drive to teach adds, however, nothing to this statement. Some teaching, especially the formal process in schools, is by adults and is confined to particular societies. But, in addition, children teach younger children, sometimes evidently without prompting by elders. This is one aspect of the nurturant behavior which is perhaps a feature of all societies. Some traditions seem to be maintained solely by children. Such conduct is probably at times altruistic in the traditional sense of the term. “Altruism” in biological writings today has, however, a different meaning, and is therefore becoming a source of confusion. In many communities, both primitive and advanced, nurturant behavior and the teaching of young children by older children are reported to be more prominent among girls than among boys. Teaching, considered as a type of behavior, has been neglected as a subject of study. It would repay multidisciplinary investigation, especially as it appears in the conduct of children.     

Measuring resistance to change at the within-session level

Resistance to change is often studied by measuring response rate in various components of a multiple schedule. Response rate in each component is normalized (that is, divided by its baseline level) and then log-transformed. Differential resistance to change is demonstrated if the normalized, log-transformed response rate in one component decreases more slowly than in another component. A problem with normalization, however, is that it can produce artifactual results if the relation between baseline level and disruption is not multiplicative. One way to address this issue is to fit specific models of disruption to untransformed response rates and evaluate whether or not a multiplicative model accounts for the data. Here we present such a test of resistance to change, using within-session response patterns in rats as a data base for fitting models of disruption. By analyzing response rate at a within-session level, we were able to confirm a central prediction of the resistance-to-change framework while discarding normalization artifacts as a plausible explanation of our results.     

Signalling signalhood and the emergence of communication

A unique hallmark of human language is that it uses signals that are both learnt and symbolic. The emergence of such signals was therefore a defining event in human cognitive evolution, yet very little is known about how such a process occurs. Previous work provides some insights on how meaning can become attached to form, but a more foundational issue is presently unaddressed. How does a signal signal its own signalhood? That is, how do humans even know that communicative behaviour is indeed communicative in nature? We introduce an experimental game that has been designed to tackle this problem. We find that it is commonly resolved with a bootstrapping process, and that this process influences the final form of the communication system. Furthermore, sufficient common ground is observed to be integral to the recognition of signalhood, and the emergence of dialogue is observed to be the key step in the development of a system that can be employed to achieve shared goals.     

Aristotle’s Immovable Movers: A Sketch

In keeping with a view that is explicitly formulated by Aristotle in his Motion of Animals, general kinetic principles must be specified according to the different types of movable entities existing in the universe. At issue, essentially, are the motions of the stars and the motions of animals. Whereas the cosmological immovable mover is the object of two complementary analyses (in Bk. VIII of Physics and in Chs. 6 and 7 of Bk. XII of Metaphysics), information on the immovability of the first mover responsible for animal motion is to be found in the psychological and psycho-physiological treatises (On the Soul, in Bk. I, Chs. 3 and 4, and in Bk. III, Ch. 10 and in Ch. 6 of the Motion of Animals). But it is also found in Ch. 7, Bk. XII of the Metaphysics, in the very context of the argument concerning the absolutely first immovable mover of the world. This suggests that the two types of motion, that of the stars and that of animals, however distinct the arguments about them are, rest on a single scheme, and maybe even on a common principle. This is liable to surprise us, as much as stars and animals appear to us to belong to heterogeneous orders of reality. But the situation is different for Aristotle, who, as attentive as he is to differences, tends nonetheless to conceive the stars as living things of a particular kind. This fact is the source of a series of difficulties that Aristotle generously left for his many commentators to solve. Aim of this text, which was initially directed to a larger audience, is to set some of these complex issues in both simple and up to date terms.