未完结的本能：郭任远与中国本能论战

受到达尔文生物进化论的深刻影响, “本能”这一概念在19世纪末至20世纪初逐渐成为人类和动物心理学的核心议题。年轻的中国发展心理生物学家郭任远在美国心理学界掀起了一场声势浩大的反本能运动。返回中国后, 他持续阐发其激进行为主义思想, 推动了“中国现代心理学史上三场争论之一”的本能论战。这场争论不仅促使艾伟、潘菽、高觉敷等心理学家纷纷参与, 还吸引了周建人、李石岑等公共知识分子的目光。郭任远的理论主张与实验工作, 桥接起了本能争论的中国与世界战场, 并激荡起诸多积极、消极与混合反应。论战加速了本能的心理学研究在方法论上从“扶手椅”迈向“实验室”, 也深陷混淆发育解释与进化解释的历史圈套。虽然郭任远及其推动的中国本能论战并没有实现对本能心理学的“完结”, 但却揭示出语义和信仰在科学研究中的认识论价值。这种理论渗透的意识形态最终确立起郭氏在行为科学史上独特的学术地位, 并为本能演变成“未完结”的、开放的科学问题提供动力。     

The implausibility of appeals to human dignity: an investigation into the efficacy of notions of human dignity in the transhumanism debate

In recent decades, recourse to notions of human dignity has increased extensively within the field of bioethics. In particular, the notion has been utilised in arguments that seek to constrain a variety of biotechnological endeavours, examples of which include human cloning and transhumanism. In this regard, transhumanism is frequently described as an affront to human dignity in a manner that appears to be aimed at halting the possibility of further debate. The efficacy of the concept of human dignity has itself, however, been questioned. Criticisms include its ambiguous nature and thus the lack of adequate definition by those who utilise it, its supposedly religious undertones as well as the fact that it may be used to argue for diametrically opposing positions within the same argument, due to the existence of distinct and conflicting interpretations. In this paper, I briefly discuss the aims of the transhumanist movement and explicate the concept of human dignity in order to assess one of the most renowned dignity arguments that has been lodged against transhumanism, namely, the argument of the bioconservative thinker Leon Kass. In addition, I discuss the counter-argument of the transhumanist Nick Bostrom. These findings have implications for the concept's efficacy to adjudicate the complex ethical conundrums posed, not only by transhumanism, but in the bioethics arena in general.     

Voice as Materialistic Principle

In this reply, three core notions from Schürmann’s comment The materiality of the abstraction “voice” are picked out and discussed: the ethos, the so called trialogical self and vocality as principle. The notion of ethos is explored through the word’s history, coming to say that ethos develops in relation to a certain geographical place and is determined by the social practices of a historically situated community. Thus, the concept allows to see how current scientific activities are rooted in reality, taken in the socio-cultural sense. The “trialogical self” is discussed in its implications, leading to firmly retain “dialogical self” as sign of a movement leading through the other to self. Schürmann’s distinction of voice as phenomenon and vocality as principle is seen as fruitful supplement to own ideas, especially as it highlights the fact that it is the act of uttering in different modes which matters for a language notion based in addressivity.     

The production of Turkish relative clauses in agrammatism: Verb inflection and constituent order

This study presents results from a sentence completion test that examines the production of finite main clauses and non-finite relative clauses in Turkish agrammatic speech. In main clauses, the verb is finite and all its constituents are in their base positions. In relative clauses, the verb is a participle and the NP undergoes overt movement to an A-bar position. The results show that non-finite relative clauses with overt movement as such are more difficult to produce than finite main clauses with a base order. The findings are discussed with respect to several hypotheses on finite verbs and syntactic complexity. The conclusion is that Turkish agrammatic speakers have more problems in producing structurally derived clauses and the production of verbs is influenced by linguistic factors such as the overt movement of the NP.     

How Charity Transcends the Culture Wars: Eugene Rogers and Others on Same-Sex Marriage

In 1994 the "Ramsey Colloquium," under the leadership of Richard John Neuhaus, posed a challenge to what it called the "homosexual movement" within the Christian Church. The challenge was to prove that it had reasons distinguishable from secular liberalism—reasons consistent with orthodox Christian theology—in favor of same-sex coupling. Eugene Rogers's book, Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way into the Triune God , can be read as a response to this challenge. The book is important not only for the content of its arguments, which are imaginative and theologically rigorous, but also for the exemplary way in which Rogers exhibits charity in his account of his conservative opponents. Rogers's recent anthology, Theology and Sexuality , provides additional evidence that a new, more promising debate is arising within the Church, a debate that has some hope of transcending the rhetoric of the culture wars.     

The how and why of what went where in apparent motion: modeling solutions to the motion correspondence problem

A model that is capable of maintaining the identities of individuated elements as they move is described. It solves a particular problem of underdetermination, the motion correspondence problem, by simultaneously applying 3 constraints: the nearest neighbor principle, the relative velocity principle, and the element integrity principle. The model generates the same correspondence solutions as does the human visual system for a variety of displays, and many of its properties are consistent with what is known about the physiological mechanisms underlying human motion perception. The model can also be viewed as a proposal of how the identities of attentional tags are maintained by visual cognition, and thus it can be differentiated from a system that serves merely to detect movement.     

Stanislas Breton's Use of Neoplatonism to Interpret the Cross in a Postmodern Setting

In the aftermath of the debate between Derrida and Levinas on Hebraism and Hellenism, Christian thought that retains a place for philosophy is often regarded as "Graeco-Christian", a monolithic system with an unfortunate history. The work of the French philosopher Stansilas Breton suggests that the reality is more complex. In Le Verbe et la croix (Paris, Desclee, 1981), he examines the function of the term logos staurou in Paul, arguing that this untranslatable term stands as a question mark in a world of language that could only speak "Jew" or "Greek". Far from being a sign of Christian superiority, the cross signals an imperative for dispossession intrinsic to Christian language. In its "nothingness" the cross functions as a principle of critique that makes innovation and engagement possible. Thus while the cross involves negation it moves beyond negative theology. Drawing upon neoplatonist philosophy, Breton delineates the way in which the cross makes possible "the writing of the self in the world". This paper draws upon Breton's understanding of the function of the cross to argue that the heritage of Athens endures and must be re-thought, always recognizing the limits of all human language. After examining Breton's understanding of the logos staurou , it relates this notion to his broader understanding of revelation as "writing". Finally it shows how Breton appeals to neoplatonist meonotology to speak in more universal terms of the need for a principle of dispossession at the heart of all religious language. For Christians the cross is this principle, enabling human beings to be causes of themselves who engender new being.     

Animals in biomedical research: the undermining effect of the rhetoric of the besieged

It is correctly asserted that the intensity of the current debate over the use of animals in biomedical research is unprecedented. The extent of expressed animosity and distrust has stunned many researchers. In response, researchers have tended to take a strategic defensive posture, which involves the assertation of several abstract positions that serve to obstruct resolution of the debate. Those abstractions include the notions that the animal protection movement is trivial and purely anti-intellectual in scope, that all science is good (and some especially so), and the belief that an ethical consensus can never really be reached between the parties.     

For the Sake of the Final End

The question of the viability of theological eudaimonism as an interpretation of the moral life has generated increasing debate in recent years. This essay aims to advance the debate about theological eudaimonism (and eudaimonism more generally) by addressing a closely related but insufficiently discussed issue: the nature of human agency and its relationship to value. The most commonly raised objection to eudaimonism is that it is objectionably agent-oriented. I argue that worries about objectionable self-orientation often stem from importing foreign pictures of agency into the eudaimonist tradition. I make this case through an analysis of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent critique of eudaimonism. Wolterstorff presupposes a common contemporary conception of agency. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas and Elizabeth Anderson, I show that other conceptions of agency are available. Clarity about the nature of human agency and its relationship to value will bring greater clarity to the debate about eudaimonism and self-orientation.     

Animals in Biomedical Research: The Undermining Effect of the Rhetoric of the Besieged

It is correctly asserted that the intensity of the current debate over the use of animals in biomedical research is unprecedented. The extent of expressed animosity and distrust has stunned many researchers. In response, researchers have tended to take a strategic defensive posture, which involves the assertion of several abstract positions that serve to obstruct resolution of the debate. Those abstractions include the notions that the animal protection movement is trivial and purely anti-intellectual in scope, that all science is good (and some especially so), and the belief that an ethical consensus can never really be reached between the parties.     

Acting in perspective: the role of body and language as social tools

We investigated how the reach-to-grasp movement is influenced by the presence of another person (friend or non-friend), who was either invisible (behind) or located in different positions with respect to an object and to the agent, and by the perspective conveyed by linguistic pronouns (“I”, “You”). The interaction between social relationship and relative position influenced the latency of both maximal fingers aperture and velocity peak, showing shorter latencies in the presence of a non-friend than in the presence of a friend. However, whereas the relative position of a non-friend did not affect the kinematics of the movement, the position of a friend mattered: latencies were significantly shorter with friends only in positions allowing them to easily reach for the object. Finally, the investigation of the overall reaching movement time showed an interaction between the speaker and the pronoun: participants reached the object more quickly when the other spoke, particularly if she used the “I” pronoun. This suggests that speaking, and particularly using the “I” pronoun, evokes a potential action. Implications of the results for embodied cognition are discussed.     

Ideology as instrument

Comments on the article by J. T. Jost, which argued that the end-of-ideology claims that emerged in the aftermath of World War II were both incorrect and detrimental to the field of political psychology. M. Glassman and D. Karno make three critical points. First, Jost objectified ideology as a grand strategy implemented at the individual level, rather than as an instrument used for a specific purpose in activity. In doing so, he set ideology up as an "object" that guides human behavior rather than as a rational part of human experience. Second, they take issue with the idea that, because somebody acts in a manner that can be categorized as ideological, there actually is such a thing as ideology separate from that event and/or political experience and that psychologists ought to understand the meaning of ideology in order to understand future human activities as outside observers. Third, Jost seems to see this objective ideology as a unidirectional, causal mechanism for activity, a mechanism that assumes individuals act according to ideology, which eclipses the possibility that immediate ideological positions are the residue of purposeful activity. Glassman and Karno suggest that it may be better to take a pluralistic view of ideology in human action. Where ideology does exist, it is as a purposeful instrument--part of a logically based action to meet some ends-in-view--a mixture of immediate goals tied to secondary belief systems (which have been integrated to serve the material purposes of the purveyors of these ideologies). So if we are to understand ideology, we can only understand it through its use in human activity.     

Every Performance Is a Stage: Musical Stage Theory as a Novel Account for the Ontology of Musical Works

This article defends Musical Stage Theory as a novel account of the ontology of musical works. Its main claim is that a musical work is a performance. The significance of this argument is twofold. First, it demonstrates the availability of an alternative, and ontologically tenable, view to well‐established positions in the current debate on musical metaphysics. Second, it shows how the revisionary approach of Musical Stage Theory actually provides a better account of the ontological status of musical works.     

Semantic Shifts in Argumentative Processes: A Step Beyond the ‘Fallacy of Equivocation’

In naturally occuring argumentation, words which play a crucial role in the argument often acquire different meanings on subsequent occasions of use. Traditionally, such semantic shifts have been dealt with by the fallacy of equivocation. In my paper, I would like to show that there is considerably more to semantic shifts during arguments than their potentially being fallacious. Based on an analysis of a debate on environmental policy, I will argue that shifts in meaning are produced by a principle I call local semantic elaboration. I will go on to show that semantic shifts in the meaning of a word, the position advocated by a party, and the questions that the parties raise during an argumentative process are neatly tailored to one another, but can be incommensurable to the opponent's views. Semantic shifts thus may have a dissociative impact on a critical discussion. By linking the structure of argumentation to its pragmatics, however, it may be revealed that there are two practices that account for a higher order of coherence of the debate. The first practice is a general preference for disagreeing with the opponent, the second practice is the interpretation of local speech acts in terms of an overall ideological stance that is attributed to the speaker. Because of these practices, parties do not criticize divergent semantic conceptions as disruptive, but they treat them as characteristic and sometimes even metonymic reflections of the parties' positions.     

Temporal binding during apparent movement of the human body

Alternating between static images of human bodies with an appropriate interstimulus interval (ISI) produces apparent biological motion. Here we investigate links between apparent biological motion and time perception. We presented two pictures of the initial and final positions of a human movement separated by six different ISIs. The shortest movement path between two positions was always biomechanically impossible. Participants performed two tasks: In an explicit task, participants judged whether they saw the longer, feasible movement path between the two postures, or the shorter, biomechanically impossible path. In an implicit task, participants judged the duration of a white square surrounding the picture sequence. At longer ISIs participants were more likely to see a longer, feasible movement path (explicit task) and underestimated the duration of body picture pairs, compared to trials displaying degraded body pictures (implicit task). We argue that perceiving apparent biological motion involves temporal binding of two static pictures into a continuous movement. Such temporal binding may be mediated by a top-down mechanism that produces a percept of biological motion in the absence of any retinal motion.     

Surrogacy and the Construction of the Maternal-Foetal Relationship: The Feminist Dilemma Examined

The feminist movement remains fundamentally divided over the issue of surrogacy. Within the confines of this article it is argued that the inadequacy of positions on both sides of the debate rests upon their common tendency to deal with the ethical consequences of surrogacy for isolated agents, without sufficient concern for the broader social implications for all pregnant women in society. In order to clarify the issues involved, feminist theorists must consider the implications of surrogacy in a broader social spectrum. Such an analysis will illustrate that the two-person dichotomous model of the maternal-foetal relationship proposed by the surrogacy arrangement has hugely prejudicial effects on the treatment received by non-contract mothers when they interact with agents of certain social institutions whose prior contact with surrogate mothers has made them more susceptible to conceiving the maternal-foetal relationship as fundamentally disconnected. In a climate of increased medical surveillance and intervention in the non-clinical context of pregnancy, the dangers of adopting this dichotomous model are palpable. Given the oppressive physical and psychological effect that this would have upon the liberty of the majority of pregnant women in society, this article argues that the feminist movement must abandon any promotion of the abstracted model of the mother-foetus relationship that is implicit in its arguments in favour of surrogacy.     

Job as Apologetic: The Role of the Audience

A key to interpreting the Book of Job, following from the general methodology for the human sciences set out by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, is to regard the field in which the text is embedded as the beliefs of its audience rather than its explicit content of story and characters. Bourdieu has shown the extent to which belief and practice involve elements of uncertainty and strategy, allowing inconsistencies to be interpreted as rhetorical effects. Several conclusions follow: the main focus of the Book is honour and wisdom; belief in divine transcendence may be produced as an effect of discontinuity and uncertainty in the narrative; piety may appear as an ideological effect of a pre-monetary economic order; and the principle of temporal retribution is shown to be reinforced by the text. At the same time, the Book is shown to furnish its own critique of conventional piety and to articulate an alternative piety grounded in critique itself. Religion is not purely ideological, for piety is portrayed as a critique of the ideological effects of the symbolic order.     

Climax of the Covenant vs Apocalyptic Invasion: A Theological Analysis of a Contemporary Debate in Pauline Exegesis

Focusing on the work of N.T. Wright, J. Louis Martyn and Douglas Harink, in this article I offer a theological analysis of the debate between salvation‐historical and apocalyptic readings of Paul as a debate in Christology. I argue that in the end both these positions are christologically deficient in ironically similar ways: both positions conceive of Christ as accidental to the divine intent for creation, a notion that falls short of the robust Christology Paul adheres to. I offer an alternative that preserves both the notions of a salvific history and an apocalyptic revelation, but is also imbedded in what I call a supralapsarian Christology.     

Mixed methods research design for pragmatic psychoanalytic studies

Calls for more rigorous psychoanalytic studies have increased over the past decade. The field has been divided by those who assert that psychoanalysis is properly a hermeneutic endeavor and those who see it as a science. A comparable debate is found in research methodology, where qualitative and quantitative methods have often been seen as occupying orthogonal positions. Recently, Mixed Methods Research (MMR) has emerged as a viable "third community" of research, pursuing a pragmatic approach to research endeavors through integrating qualitative and quantitative procedures in a single study design. Mixed Methods Research designs and the terminology associated with this emerging approach are explained, after which the methodology is explored as a potential integrative approach to a psychoanalytic human science. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are reviewed, as well as how they may be used in Mixed Methods Research to study complex human phenomena.